I have never experienced Black Friday although thru my Aunt who was a buyer for a big department store, i know how meaningful that day is! My kids grew up on military posts and the biggest "I want-need-want that!" years were overseas with little commercial influence. Now I am a grandparent (x5) and Oh, how different and fun this all is not being the Santa Claus! And this year I did lots of BF buying over the net....sales plus free shipping! I even have my new artificial tree up tho not decorated. Now, this artificial tree is almost a crime for me who delegated Hubby in charge of bringing in the fresh tree and to decorate it--on Christmas Eve! What a wonderful mad rush that all was! I think all my outdoor gardening has made this rather heartless transition to pretty but plastic easier and my bad-back guy just brought in a bottle of cedar spray to ease the tension of this less-mess "new". Guess we are getting delegated to the sidelines now, but still having great fun and have great memories.

sweeby, We call that game, "Dirty Santa". It's how we do gifts with my work staff at our holiday party. Only at this year's party, we are doing a Pink Elephant gift, which I have learned is where you re-gift something you've received but had no use for. I was HUGELY successful in the wee hours of shopping this morning, and I'm happy to say I AM DONE! Only waited about 15 minutes or so to get into Best Buy, got the one item I went in for, and was out of there in less than 10 minutes. That was at 5AM. I did wait an hour in line for theater tickets, but the deal was too great to pass up. Got lots of tickets to great shows for many on our list. Kohls was UN-friggin-believable!!! I took a helpful hint from a customer that was leaving as I walked in and bought something at the jewelry counter, and they rang up the other couple things I bought. I only waited about 20 or 30 minutes there, as opposed to the 1-2 hour wait in the regular line. My other stops were quick and relatively painless. I finished EVERYTHING, and saved several hundred dollars...literally! I just added it all up. I got $1550 worth of gifts for $625! I'd say it was worth it. And I didn't see any "Grinches" either...yeah! Hope everyone had a warm, filling holiday.

"Black Friday" makes me giggle. My best friend was a department store manager back when that was a snarky thing said by the clerks. The convergence of every work holiday has to have a sale to get them in the doors, with the traditional start of Christmas shopping season, made working on Thanksgiving Friday a nightmare of big crowds, mislabeled one day prices, demanding customers on a mission to score in a hurry to get to the next store, plus pushing and shoving and general lack of nice. Now we have stores promoting Black Friday, and even more, removing all meaning with "Spring Black Friday" and "All Month Long Black Friday" and "Black Friday Any Day Deals". Those 100 only doors open at 6:00 a.m. things are just to get you out of your warm bed and everyone home for the holidays comfort, and in to buy something, anything, since you got up so early for it. I don't play. I get the kind of bonding outings that Katlan and Socks describe. That sounds really nice. Especially if it's not in close crowds and there's room to walk. Our Thanksgiving Friday tradition is to stay home, do jigsaw puzzles, talk, maybe half watch a football game. Perhaps barbecue if the weather is nice. Just generally enjoy an unspoken for day off. :)

I went to our local Meijer on Thanksgiving day to take advantage of 3 of the "one day only" items that were financially worth it to me enough to tempt me there -- but hated that they do that (and that I gave in to it), it creates this circle of "demand was there" so people came, but if they offered them on Friday instead the demand would still be there and they wouldn't have to require so many to staff the store on Thursday. In fact, on Friday it turned out that they offered one of the "one day only" items again, and a better offer on a similar of the other. I went to Old Navy on Friday to get the $10 jackets. The line was not as long as I've seen in the past. Also stopped at Walmart late in the day to get the very cheap ($2) towels -- I have a special use for them. I have seriously considered getting one of the smart TVs but still not convinced that it is essential to my plan for cutting the cable, so I am waiting.