Black Friday

Our tradition is being ruined! Black Friday is becoming Black Thursday. 

For the last few years, Mom and I have spent hours planning our early morning shopping excursion.  We anxiously await the Thanksgiving newspaper and pore over the ads and circulars looking for great deals and store opening hours.  Then we strategically order our trip by opening hours, which items are a must, and location.  Since we are both planners, this is one of the best parts of the whole Black Friday ritual.

At 3:00 am, we get up, shower, and make a pot of coffee.  We gather any supplies we might need like travel coffee mugs - last year we took my whole insulated carafe.  Then we hit the lines. Usually mom is complaining the whole time: "What are we thinking...look at these lines...I need more coffee...do we really need this?"  If she doesn't moan enough, I join in saying: "This is so much fun...I'm freezing...look at those crazy people in front of us...I need more coffee"  After going to the top two or three stores, we meet the boys for breakfast (they've usually just woken up).  Then we hit the last few places on our list.  

Here's the kicker, the majority of the time we don't actually need/want any of the "great deals".  We just go for the fun of it.  Being early morning people is a plus; and, surprisingly enough after seeing all the bad press about crabby, pushy shopppers, most of the people we encounter are cheerful, helpful, and smiling.  I can really see the true spirit of christmas generosity, even on this day that epitomizes all that is Corporate America. 

It saddens me that opening times are getting earlier and earlier.  I want to keep our tradition, but I don't want to cut into the time we spend together on Thanksgiving.  Being together as a family and reminding ourselves of what we really have to be thankful for is so much more important than being at the front of the line.  I guess we'll have to see the ads this year and evaluate times, deals, and locations just like we usually do before we make any changes; but it just seems wrong to line up immediately after washing the last dessert plate from family dinner. Maybe the mother-daughter tradition will have to die to save the family tradition.