Black Friday

I ventured out with the thousands of other shoppers on Friday morning to see what it was all about. I had never shopped on the day after Thanksgiving, but was invited to join my two sister in-laws for the Friday festivities.

They picked me up just before six (we had a bit of a misunderstanding about the time, and I was patiently waiting for a little while outside until they arrived) and we headed off to Rochester for the big day.

Since I had never participated in the Black Friday Shopping excursion, my sister in-laws were very helpful in walking me through their process. This is kind of a summary of how they do the planning for their outing. First they get the HUGE Thursday paper and pull all the ads. They do a quick once over and glance to see if anything jumps out. Then make a list of items they need to get for certain people - Johnny needs socks, Jane needs a blanket - etc. Then they go through a second time, in great detail to see which stores need to be on the stop list. They are both so organized, I'm actually rather jealous at how organized they are.

After we arrived at the mall(sister in-laws coupons in hand), I was shocked at how busy the mall really is at 6am! Wow! I could not believe this many people really go out shopping at this time of day. Yes, I am naive. I headed off to Caribou to get a hot tea and that line was even huge - took about 20 minutes to pick up my drink. Everyone was very nice. I read on Facebook some pretty interesting stories - about how folks witnessed angry, upset people - one person even said 'melee'. Well, no such luck in Rochester MN. Pretty tame. It was crowded but everyone was pretty chipper, or at least what I saw. I'd totally do it again it was awesome people watching - and I found a few small things at a good price too.

I was super excited because I had actually done a majority of my shopping online. Since most of the Thursday deals were also available online, I got some big ones (husband and others) purchased without getting out of my jammies.

Now that is my kind of shopping!
:)