Black Friday

So, there are a few things we usually stick fast to. One is keeping Christmas simple. We do not participate in  Black Friday shopping. We have always told the girls that Santa is make believe, and they only get one gift from us (though usually make out really well because our families are so large). I love saying that my girls know more about Saint Nicholas and Saint Basil than the legend of Santa. We do mostly handmade items for our family for the holidays. It just feels better, and the girls LOVE picking out what they made for what family members. For us to, it means more to get a tub of cookies or a special recipe than stuff from Walmart.

That being said, last night Kevin and our brother in law Dave announced yesterday that they are going to Best Buy. At midnight. To wait in line to be there at opening to get a doorbuster deal. This floored me, because Kevin, well, my husband is not a spender. We get most of our furniture from Craigslist and thrift stores. When we do need a big item like electronics or appliances, he will spend months researching what he wants and figuring out when and where to get the best price. We will spend almost every weekend hitting all the stores near us, just to see what they had in their scratch and dent sections.

Apparently, one of the doorbuster deals was a TV. The TV he has wanted for a while. Up until this morning, we were using a 20 inch computer monitor as a TV. Hey, it worked. Sure, Kevin missed having his gaming monitor at his desk, but we needed something. This set up has been working for us for about a year now. Kevin would often talk about buying something else, so he could get his monitor back and watch his shows on a TV you didn't need a magnifying glass to see from the couch. So, off Kevin went with Dave at 11 last night, to sit for HOURS in the freezing rain, to get their item tickets for what they wanted at 3 am, then for the doors to open at 5 am. Kev said there was at least 100 people in line by the time 5 rolled around. It took them until 7am to finish checking out. To me, that is insane.

Apparently, for the make and model of TV, they saved almost 40%. Saving that percentage on something he wanted made Kevin really happy. He came home with the grin of a 12 year old boy who got his red rider bb gun for Christmas. He set it up immediately, smiling the whole time.

Now that the cardinal rule of no shopping on black friday was broken, I just hope he doesn't see the TV advertised for less later. That, and I hope both the boys get over whatever illness they now have from sitting out in the freezing rain for hours. They both just woke up with sniffles and coughs, took dayquil and are sitting on the couch under a blanket, watching the new big TV with grins on their faces....