So...Black Friday and gifts this year

[DammitJanet]

Sorry it took me so long to get back here. I am sick as a dog with some cold.

Monkey's mom brought her to our house about 4pm. We werent expecting her till Friday. I am betting she was wanting to hit the sales too...lol.

So even though I hated to take her, she had to come. I had Billy, Tony, Monkey and me all in there on what Monkey and I named "Operation Walmart"...lol. She carried her map of the store and where everything was located. I sent her and Papa to the kids clothes section to get some PJ's and a couple of track suits for her. I was positioned in between the toy and small appliance isle. Plan was to get what I wanted from the toys and then rush to the appliances. Billy stood inline for the TV.

I did well. Monkey and Papa got 4 sets of PJ's and 2 track suits then they went over to small appliances to look for me and grabbed up the griddle I wanted. None of us ever found the little blender thing. I thought I wasnt going to find the stand mixer but I saw a man who had two of them in his hands and I asked him where they were and he said they were all gone but if I really wanted one he would give me one of them. That was so nice.

I got two of the princess dolls that talk, a bedset like Hound go but mine is Hello Kitty, several princess type things like a yahtzee jr game in the Princess theme, a game that looks like Trouble but is Princess themed, a set with a doll and stroller for Mouse, a huge Minnie Mouse, gosh I cant remember it all!

Monkey liked it all until she saw all the toys and I told her she had to hide her eyes....lol. Well she had already seen some things so I let her have one of the dolls. I told her to just remember this on Xmas day. After that, well, she wants to go again!

 

[svengandhi]

I guess I am the only one. I didn't shop in person or on line. Tomorrow is small business Saturday so I plan to go to the local thrift shop and get some work clothing for me and for daughter to student teach in. I looked at all the circulars for all the stores and didn't find one thing I needed.

Congrats to those who did get shopping done.

 

[donna723]

Well, after swearing that I'd never do it, I ended up traveling 60 miles and spending the better part of the day at Best Buy today! We got there in the early afternoon and it was already dark when we left! My son's phone died, and of course he can't live without a phone ... They had a promotion going on just for a few days where you could get a very expensive phone free when you signed up for the plan. He filled out all the information online last night, got approved, had it all set up, just had to go in and pick up the phone and have it activated. Sounds easy, right? But nooooooo ... We fought our way through the horrible traffic, finally found the place, and found the right counter in the store, and waited ... and waited ... and waited! After we sat there for an hour a girl finally asked us if we were on the list. What list? Nobody told us there was a list! So they put us on the list, said it would be about an hour before his name came up, so we waited in the truck for another hour, came back in the store and waited at least 45 minutes more for them to call his name. Then when we finally were helped, it took another 30 minutes for the guy to do all the paperwork, activate the phone, and transfer all his info from his old phone. Any other time it probably wouldn't be nearly as bad but it was just a coincidence that his phone decided to die on the dreaded Black Friday!

Other than that, my shopping is going great and I'm almost done, never went in to a store till today. My four year old grandson is now old enough to look through a catalog and find things he likes so my daughter set him up a "wish list" on the Toys R Us site. So I just went through clicking on things until I had all his gifts purchased. There was only one thing my daughter really wanted, a rather expensive coat, so I got that for her, and I have the things for my sister in law. So I just need to get the gifts for my son now but it is soooo hard to get any hints out of him! Every time I ask him he says, "I'll think about it". Grrrr!

 

[svengandhi]

How about a payment or two on his new phone plan for your son?

 

[1905]

I shopped online at Kohls. I bought one boy 6 pairs of Nike wicking running socks, his girlfriend bought him a pair and he won't take them off.....24 hours later it is now. She also bought him a pair of running shoes. I got difficult child a pair of thermal underwear in camo...the youngest got a Levi's wallet, he has been using the wallet from Pulp fiction that says in huge letters "BAD MOTHER F......er" It was funny last year, now not approriate. He actually bought that for difficult child last year too. I bought some Christmas linens for the table and 2 nightlights, for the bathrooms. $111 after my coupon code and then they gave me $30 kohls cash to use later

 

[trinityroyal]

Black Friday sales have just started becoming popular around here. I guess the local retailers are getting tired of everyone crossing the border to get good deals on their Christmas shopping.

That said, you would not catch me anywhere near the malls on a shopping day that big. I try to have all of my Christmas shopping done before the end of October each year, so that I don't have to deal with the crowds. If by some off chance I need to go shopping between Halloween and Christmas, I get there 10 minutes after they open on a Tuesday, which is the slowest shopping time.

I LOVE online shopping, because it doesn't involve interacting with...ugh...people. <grin>

 

[Lothlorien]

I do the majority of my shopping online. I refused to go to the stores on Black Friday. My stepmom and her sister go out after Thanksgiving and spend the night shopping. They did it this year and said there weren't that many great deals....at least for what they were looking for. I'd rather shop in the comfort of my pj's in front of my computer or tablet.

 

[DammitJanet]

I think Black Friday is just something I love to do. I started doing it when the boys were younger and Tony and I would get a sitter to watch the boys during the night while we headed out. Back then nothing opened before 5 am. At that point we didnt have a Super Walmart in town so we had to go all the way to Fayetteville to do major shopping.

It used to be that the stores would do something special for the first X many people in line. I think Target gave out gift bags with little items that could be used in stockings along with coupons. One year Toys R Us came out and gave everyone standing in line hot cocoa and a donut.

Since we now have the Super Walmart in two places where I live, it isnt such a madhouse. The stores are open 24 hours so there is no rushing the doors and getting in a stampede. I normally get there about an hour before it starts even though that means we have to park in the boonies. People here seem to be fairly helpful and nice. We all stand around and talk about prices and tell people where certain items are located. Like this year I was one of 3 grandmother's who were after this talking Disney doll. We talked for about half an hour about the dolls, the carton of books next to it, we decided I would be better off getting Mouse the doll that came with the stroller. They pointed out where there were some cute small LaLa Loopsie sets. I asked one lady to hand me the last ball pit and they did without complaint. I was picking up a Minnie Mouse item and someone told me to go down the isle because they had the really big Minnie Mouse. Like I said before, I was amazed when a man gave me one of the two stand mixers he had in his hands.

The only really irritating thing that happened was something that happened to Billy. He was standing in line for the 32" LED TV and it was very long. We all expected that they would run out after about 50 or so but Walmart advertised for weeks on TV and in their flyers about the 1 hour guarantee. If you were in the line for certain products before the end of the hour, you would pay for it and then go online and give your information. Well in the middle of the hour, some employee came out and told the line that they were out of the TV's and out of the coupons. That went over well...lol. Now one thing Billy has become very good at since working retail so long is knowing what the law is. He flat told the employee that they couldnt run out of coupons since they had the advertisement stating what it stated. At first the guy tried to argue with Billy but he told him he was a manager of a competing retail store and if they didnt abide by their advertising they would be in trouble. Oddly enough, more coupons appeared and the people around him cheered! Billy has come in right handy when I have trouble with stores.

Walmart did announce to the crowds that because they were opening so much earlier than before that they expected more kids in the store and they had a much bigger police presence. If anyone had any trouble just ask a clerk or an officer. I dont think anyone needed to.

I do feel badly for employees who have to work on Black Friday, and especially the ones who had to work on Thursday. It is a madhouse for them. I know this from Billy. He had to get up at 3 am on Friday so his store could open at 5:30. He had one dumb woman try to force him to sell her an item on Wednesday that wasnt on sale until Friday. Of course he couldnt do that, not at the sale price. One thing that he hates about RS is that they will get one or two of an item in their stores but the people have the option of buying it there and having it shipped to their homes free but not many people want to take that option. I have no idea why when they were perfectly happy to do so at Walmart.

 

[1905]

I swore I would not go near a store this weekend. easy child and I went to Macy's of all places to pick up his girlfriend. She works there on weekends. I had a coupon for Bath and Body Works for the gift bag that you can normally buy with a $40 purchase, but my coupon said "any purchase" so I bought a hand sanitizer and got the bag for $20. I'll split the items and give them as gifts to friends, the teacher I work alonside and I exchange gifts. I also bought a set of wine glasses at Macy's for ten bucks. Our mall was dead, I have never seen it like that on boyfriend weekend, maybe because stores were open all night. So far I said I was finished shopping twice here ....lol. Janet, difficult child is going to be driving right through there Jan 2 or 3 with his wife. I habe

 

[1905]

Sorry, I'll pm you.

 

[donna723]

I must say though, after our day-long adventure at Best Buy, when we finally got helped, it went very well. The guy who helped us was an 18-year-old kid who really knew what he was doing. He was very helpful, patient and courteous, answered every question, knew exactly what he was doing. We were there at approx. 5:00 pm on Friday and he had been there working constantly, on his feet the whole time, for over 24 hours! That would have killed me! So he kind of made up for the other bad experiences there.

 

[susiestar]

Yall are so ambitious. I went out on Fri to Sally's because J wanted to look there for some things. She found nail stickers (the kind you use instead of polish) in xmas designs for 69 and 99 cents. Someone told us that ones from last year won't stick or last, but we tried some that had been on clearance almost as long and they lasted as long as any others she has had, so she went ahead with these.

I also went to Joann's fabric. I got very little on Fri because we got their about 2 and they had 25% off entire purchase until noon on Fri and Sat (excluded some things, but only the usual and not books). Then when I checked out, the coupon that expired at noon worked. But I wanted some fabric that wasn't on sale until Sat, so we went back Sat also. On Sun I got a LOT. THey have storage boxes that are a plastic outer case and inside you have 24 containers that are like TicTac boxes. I have been using a TON of little beads and these are awesome to store them. They are reg just $5 but were half off and then the other discount, so super cheap. I got some fleece for a project, and then there was just a remnant left so I got that to play with because remnants are 75% off.

The fabric has 'Grandpa' printed all over it. If J was in a prank mood, she could give husband a scarf out of that. He would FREAK, but it would be mean. So I won't let her do it. Of course she isn't going to make him a Gpa in the foreseeable future, thankfully. She isn't ready.

I took thank you iwth me on Sat. Just the 2 of us. He picked some fabric to make some gifts and he chose very well.
Then we went to the grocery. I got couple things on boyfriend, but was not up to Walmart. Our local smaller chain grocery has got crazy prices (super high) except for sale items. On boyfriend they had a coupon for ten bucks off if you spent fifty, but the prices would have meant the food was right around the 'normal' prices for the other stores like WM. Then on Sat I found ground beef marked down to 1.49 a pound and their premade salads down to less than half price on some we like. So I got them for dinner. They also had Pink Lady apples, my faves, down to $2 for a 3 pound bag. They are not easy to find in bags an cost that much per pound or more if you buy them individually (they were $2.89 per pound two weeks ago, yikes). I am going to put them into the crockpot to cook into 'fried' apples and into apple sauce/butter.

That is pretty much what we got. Not too exciting, is it?

 

[DammitJanet]

You would never believe how lost I was the few years I didnt do boyfriend. For the most part I didnt have small kids and I also simply wasnt up to standing that long. There is no way in heck you could get a wheelchair or one of those motorized chairs they have through that crowd. Not only would it be almost impossible, it would be mean of me to do that. Just having my cart as full as I did was hard to handle.

I am also making some of the gifts and from what I can tell, everyone is thrilled with those too. I just gave Cory one of the hats I made because I did it as a "let me see if I have it right" project. He likes it. Monkey tried it on too and it would almost be perfect for her. I have found out this year that I can crochet with much thicker yarn than I could before so I have a much better way of making hats. Just that normal super saver worsted weight acrylic yarn is not that great to work with. Well its easy to learn with but the items arent as soft as the thicker chunky yarn. I love the chunky yarn in a wool blend. I am using the worsted weight acrylic yarn to make the La La Loopsie hat though because I have to make those curls for her hair. Im not sure they would come out as well in anything else. I am also going to attempt to make a La La Loopsie doll which will need to be made of the same yarn so it will stand up well.