aeraen

No crowds for me, because I shopped for everything from my living room! And got everything I wanted. Viva la internet!

You're right! I see them now. You might have just made a dishonest woman out of me!

No Charter Club cashmere sweaters this year. I bought one every Black Friday for years. Funny, this year I was going to skip it since I bought a sweater while visiting Scotland, and I justified it by saying I won't buy my usual cashmere sweater from Macy's this year. Of course, the first thing I did was check the ad for the sweaters. I guess Macy's is keeping me honest.

Absolutely against it. Thanksgiving is the ONE holiday in our country that is non-sectarian, focused entirely on being grateful for what you have. It is, to me, the purest holiday... Christmas without the greed. However, American enterprise has managed to find a way to inject the greed into this one day of the year designed for appreciating what one already has, by forcing us to go out to get MORE. I vote with my wallet and stay home. And, I sympathize with both the store employees who have no choice, and the shoppers with budgets so tight they cannot afford to take this stand.

What a nice way to play Santa Claus. Not BF, but I often get free tickets from my place of employment for local events. Occasionally I get more than I need, and like to hand them out to strangers at the door. Nothing makes my day like making someone else's day.

There are lots of small specialty stores that offer unusual or custom items not always available at the big box store. While I might not necessarily shop at them on that paticular Saturday, I do like to look for some of my gifts there.

Four snuggli type quilts (well, really more of quilts with snaps that you can wear but still move in). They were originally marked at $60 but, between a clearance sale and a price-marking snafu that the store honored, I got them for $2.97 each. But, that wasn't the real bargain. Because everyone in the family had one, we wore them all winter in the house, allowing us to turn the heat down by a few more degrees than normal. In the end, we saved hundreds in heating costs.

Have you thought of asking her if she would mind watching your kids for you while you shopped? Maybe she'll let them sleep over at her house. You can get your shopping done and put away while the little one's snooze comfortably.

OK, so let's say I'm number 300 in the line (about right, I think). So after each 30th person in line, they hold the phone for 20 seconds. That means they will stop the line 10 times for 20 seconds before they get to me... 10 x 20 = 200 seconds, or about 3 and a half minutes. I'm really not going to complain about waiting an extra 3 and a half minutes... and I live where it's darned cold! ETA: All it will really do is minimize the bottleneck at the door where everyone is grabbing carts and figuring out which way to go.

Thank you, ObiRich, you said it better than I would have. I actually thought MORE people would burn me for heresy than actually did. I've worked my share of holidays, too (airline). I was willing to give up my Thanksgiving so a family could get to Grandma's in time to take the turkey out of the oven, but wouldn't be so thrilled to give up a family holiday w/ my kids just so Mrs. Walton could rake in a few spare million bucks.

I don't like it simply because it is unfair to the workers, who either have to skip or cut short their Thanksgiving, or go without sleep the night before their biggest day of the year. That has to be torture for them. When KMart introduced their sales on Thanksgiving Day, I decided then that, as much as I love my bargains, no deal is worth my making someone else give up their Thanksgiving with their family.

The necklace isn't worth $250. I'm a beader, and I can buy a strand of that kind of amethysts at any reasonable bead store for less than $20. I'm not saying that $25 including shipping isn't a nice price for the necklace... I would easily pay that to not have to fuss with making it myself. But just don't believe that you are wearing (or giving) a two hundred and fifty dollar necklace. One of my biggest pet peeves is a ridiculously inflated "regular" price, just to call a realistc price a "sale".

If the sale is "secret", how do we find out about it? Do you have to be on their email list?

I'm glad to hear that. No bargain is worth the risk of taking small children to something like that.

Those big bags blue from IKEA are great to carry larger items before checking out, w/o having to use a cart. They are great for moving about the store quickly and are unlikely to draw the evil eye from security, since they are so obvious. I've been using the same IKEA bag in Target for several years now.