As a previous small town, small business owner, I completely understand the desire to shop locally and support my neighbors. As a very materialistic person who has been intentionally working my way toward a more minimalistic lifestyle, for years, I completely understand the importance of emphasizing the real meaning of Christmas... ya know, the birth of our Savior... over the number of packages crammed under the tree. But here's the truth. I like buying things for people, I believe in being a good steward of my resources, and I don't have an exorbitant amount of cash. So, for years, I have shopped on Black Friday.
What I was never going to do was shopping on Thanksgiving. And yet, when dinner had been consumed, and the game had finished up, and the kids were happily laying around Grandma and Grandpa's living room in pie induced semi-comatose bliss, it occurred to me that Phil and I could, indeed, slip away for a couple of hours, alone, and snag some deals. And so we did.
It should be abundantly clear
that I love this more than Phil does,
but he's such a trooper, and we do have fun together:
So we walked into Wal-Mart for three items. 21 minutes after the clock struck 6:00, I was sitting in the van, in the parking lot, with two of them. Phil had a little bit more trouble getting to the check-out lanes, so it took him about 40 minutes total. It was the easiest holiday shopping trip ever as far as I'm concerned, and I even got to direct some brand new Black Friday shoppers and help them to get the items they were after. Yeah, that might have been the control freak in me coming out, but it is kind of fun when you're walking to the end of the check out line and people are thanking you as you go past...
L.
PS We also did a lot of on-line shopping, so our list had dwindled, considerably, before we ever left the house. I would imagine it would have been a bit more hectic if we were vying for electronics, which we have done in the past...
