joy in the Mornings

I hadn’t planned on doing any Christmas shopping on Black Friday - that is until I saw the ads in the Thanksgiving Day newspaper.

Toys-R-Us was having a great sale on Lego sets that my son has really, really, really, really been wanting. The sale price was $40 off the regular price - so hubby and I decided it was worth it to brave the crowds. Money is tight this year for us - like most families, so we let the kids sleepover at Grandma’s and we got up at 5 a.m. Friday morning to head over to the stores.

We got to Toys-R-Us at around 5:45 a.m. and the parking lot was packed and the store was packed. We found the item we were after and went ahead and bought one other item that our son wanted. We couldn’t find any items - on sale - that our daughters were wanting.

So, then we went to find the end of the line. The checkout line stretched in a snaking line through aisles and along the outside wall all the way back to the entrance doors and back around through more aisles. I was about to tell hubby to just forget it, but thoughts of a $40 savings clinched it for me. We stood in line and waited and waited and waited. The line moved pretty good so I think we probably actually stood in line for about 40-45 minutes roughly.

In all, the people were pleasant and polite. I didn’t see any shoving or rudeness, although I overheard another shopper saying they’d just come from Wal-Mart and people were getting into fights over there.

At Toys-R-Us we all shared a common camaraderie - saving money while giving our kids Christmas presents. The woman behind us told me she’d told her kids (teenagers) that they could have one Christmas present this year, unless they wanted to get up early and stand in line at Toys-R-Us - then they could afford to get them two presents (thanks to the early morning sales).

So times are tough all over. Did you brave any of the sales and was it worth it? I’m curious!