Kindred Spirits

On Tuesday, one of my violin student's parents asked me if I ever did Black Friday shopping. I smiled, and said, "Once. And I did it by myself and had a ton of fun." Well, this Friday, I headed out with the same student's parents at midnight to brave the horde of shoppers at Toys-R-Us. We actually lined up at 11:00 and already there were severl hundred people in front of us. We were smart, though, we weren't there to browse, but to buy certain items, so when we hit the sales floor, we managed to grab all of the items in barely under 10 minutes. But, here is the thing about Black Friday: it's not hard to get in, but to get out. One of us stood in the checkout line while the others went to grab the items. Even then, it took us almost 40 minutes to check out of the store.

Some of you might be shuddering at the idea of stepping into a toy store at any time during the Christmas season. Some of you might be thinking well at least you got that done and could go home. But then, some of you might not know that it was just the first store, and that I didn't go to sleep that night. We grabbed a quick bite to eat and some caffeine to drink and then hung out at my house until 2:45am. Then we split up since Target opened at 5:00am and Kohl's opened at 4:00am. We were in and out of Kohl's in 20 minutes. Drove to Target. Waited an hour to get in, and then were in and out of Target in 15 minutes. Then we drove to Half Price Books and waited for an hour and a half, but were sustained by a quick run to grab some kolaches. By the end of the stint, I was ready to crash, so I picked Tanner up from work and came home. I made breakfast, got the girls dressed and started decorating the house for Christmas while Tanner slept.

Oh, did I mention that I had been up since 5:30am the previous morning because I made a fabulous beer turkey?

My hero brother, Jonathan, finally came to my rescue at around 10:30am and said that he would watch the kids for me so that I could sleep. I crawled into bed, and then Georgie crawled into bed with me. She downed a bottle and the proceeded to roll onto my head where she fell asleep. I finally fell asleep for about an hour or until Georgie woke up. Muddled through the afternoon with Tanner muddling right alongside me and then I grabbed another nap when Reagan and Georgie took an afternoon nap only this time I didnt' wake up when they did and slept soundly until 8:00. Aaahhh...now for some left over turkey and chocolate cream pie.