I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! As I prepared our holiday meal I was, as always, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Ever since I was a child I watched the parade. While others might go to the local high school football game the morning of Thanksgiving, I always watched the parade. Like clockwork, close to noon when the parade was almost over, Santa and Mrs. Claus made their appearance and for me it officially became the holiday season in that one minute.
Tis the season for shopping and spreading good cheer! While stores might be open on Thanksgiving Day in states across the country, in Massachusetts that is not the case. There was much talk on the local news that stores that had hoped to be open at midnight on Black Friday might not be able to since employees were not legally able to enter the stores at all on Thursday. With some stores opening at midnight, others at 4 or 5 what time do we start our annual journey?
We had hoped midnight would be the hour for our journey but after seeing the local news and the lines outside the stores, we decided against going out for a midnight Black Friday start! We were still so full from dinner, who could think of shopping. Maybe 4 or 5 am like last year? No, we slept in and by 7 we were off and running.
Old Navy was our first stop followed by Target, Kohls, Walmart and then the Mall! It was unseasonably warm for our journey and we found great parking spots everywhere we went. The first stores we went to were somewhat quiet since they had been open the longest. We met people who had been shopping since midnight and were still going strong! We breezed in and out quickly until we got to the Mall! The Mall was busy and some of the stores we were in had long lines to make the actual purchase. Trying on the clothes at Ann Taylor Loft took no time at all, but standing in the line to pay took almost an hour! During the time I waited in line the sale went from 50% to 40% off, but I was in line in time to get the 50% off but others who were in the store and still shopping at noon and were not in line would only get 40% off their purchase. At least in Express, if you were in the store by a certain time, they gave you a coupon which extended the noon deadline for their discount till 1 PM. Very Fair!
We did our fair share of shopping on Black Friday and left tired but happy. Cyber Monday came and went as well without damage to the credit card. The holiday decorations seemed to have been up since September but now it truly feels like the holidays.
Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season! Happy shopping to one and all!
