Black Friday Success!!!!

This past Friday was a day that shoppers across the country know and love...Black Friday!

It's that ever amazing day where, as long as you are willing to get up at ungodly hours of the night and morning, you can stand outside in the cold and the dark with hundreds of other (insane) people...

...to await that time when you will finally all be let into the store, only to stampede over the top of each other in a race to get inside...

...to all rush to grab the same 17 items that everyone "absolutely has to have because they are SUCH a good deal", but nobody actually needs!

Normally, people in a civilized society would ridicule anyone who was acting so idiotically...however, since almost every American seems to subscribe to the Black Friday philosophy of "get the deals while they last", no one seems to mind that we turn into a bunch of greedy, neurotic, selfish, a$$holes every Friday after Thanksgiving!

Now, it would be hypocritical of me to completely and utterly berate all Black Friday shoppers, because I've been known to go out an partake in the wonderful shopping festivities myself from year to year...I am proud to say, however, that I have never waited more than half an hour in a line to get into a store (what could possibly be SO great that I would need to stand outside freezing my keister off for multiple hours just to make sure I got one, when I could simply wait for it to go on sale again the following week?!) and I have NEVER pushed, shoved, punched, man-handled, or otherwise harmed one of my fellow shoppers in my quest to get the thing I was shopping for.

This year, my sister really wanted to go Black Friday shopping, so Thursday evening, after all the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and pies were comfortably stowed in our tummies, we curled up on the sofa with all the store ads and mapped out our "plan of attack".  I didn't really have anything that I desperately needed to get (nor did I have any money to purchase anything with anyway) so I was just perusing the ads when I came across the one thing I had told my parents that I wanted for Christmas...a Garmin Forerunner 405 Running Watch.

This baby does it all...because there is a GPS system built into the watch, not only can it keep track of your total time and your mileage, but it can calculate your pace per mile, track your elevation gain/loss, and even monitor your heart rate.  Then, when your workout is done, it can wirelessly send the data from your run directly to your computer so that you can keep track of your workouts and how you are progressing.  In other words, what avid runner wouldn't want one of these watches?!?!?!

The prices on Garmin watches stay fairly consistent, so much so that up until last Thursday, I had only had my eye on the Forerunner 110 because it was the cheapest model available (amazing watches they are, but reasonably priced they aren't!).  It still tracks distance, time and pace, but obviously isn't nearly as cool and can't do nearly as many things as the 405.  So imagine my surprise when the Black Friday ad for Sports Authority was listing the amazing Garmin Forerunner 405 for $150 cheaper than it normally sells for, making it less expensive than the most basic model!  Being the economically savvy daughter that I am, and not wanting my parents to have to spend more money than needed on my Christmas gift (like how I tried to make myself look totally selfless there?!  Yeah, I did too!) I immediately showed my mother the ad.  She apparently thought it was too good of a deal to pass up as well, and before I knew it, Sports Authority had been named our first stop on our Black Friday extravaganza!  The store was opening Friday morning at 5am, but seeing as how it wasn't one of the huge departments stores with all the "can't pass up" deals on tvs and other electronics, we figured that as long as we showed up a couple minutes early, we wouldn't have any problems getting in and getting what we wanted.  So we unwittingly showed up to the store at 4:45am, only to find a huge line of people down the side of the building, down the side of the Barnes & Noble next door, and around the corner of the bookseller.  At this point, I started to panic because, let's face it, I'd kind of gotten my hopes up that I was finally going to get a Garmin running watch.  But my mom, ever the logical shopper, said we might as well wait the 15 minutes until the store opened and go in to see if we could get one.  So we waited, and eventually the crowd started to slowly but surely surge through the door and into the store...and much to my delight, everyone started to disperse to all different areas.  My mom, sister and I headed to the back of the store where the watches were kept, and low and behold, there were still a few Garmins left!  I happily picked one up, and didn't even have to fight off any other shoppers to get it.  We got in line to check out, and after only a few minutes waiting, we had my watch and were out the door.

After the high of the Garmin watch success, I was fading fast, energy wise, so a well timed stop at Starbucks was just what the doctor ordered to keep us going strong!

We literally shopped until we dropped, and my mother also generously purchased me a Kitchenaid Mixer as a second Christmas gift (mainly because it was freakishly on sale, but also as part of her ever vigilant quest to turn me into a domesticated woman).

The one quasi-bummer about these amazing gifts is that, since they are my Christmas presents, they are still at my parents' house to get wrapped and put under the tree...so I don't get to use them for another month.  But it's a small price to pay for two of the most awesome gifts ever...I have to say that I have the most generous, loving, selfless mother imaginable!!!  All in all, Black Friday shopping was a huge success!

What awesome Black Friday deals did you manage to snag this year?