Who’s done it this year? We didn’t intend to but technically did. Rather than brave the shopping malls – not that we have that much shopping to do anyway – the wife and I decided to do the circle-island trip again on the local bus system. Always a pleasant trip, it takes close to four hours to circle Oahu. They have two routes – clockwise and counterclockwise – and we stopped off at the North Shore town of Haleiwa. You cannot – cannot – stop in Haleiwa without going to the wildly popular Matsumoto’s Shave Ice. It turns out they were having a one-day-only Black Friday sale on their merchandise, 10% off. I bought a T-shirt.
That was the extent of our Black Friday shopping, one T-shirt, but it counts. Anyone else?
I went grocery shopping, reluctantly, but I needed stuff. Traffic was OK, the store wasn’t crowded, but that’s probably because I avoided the malls and the big-box stores.
Online, I bought one sweater for 50% from Banana Republic. No way I was going to set foot inside a store, and threat of more protests confirmed this decision.
Didn’t hit any stores today. And, from my vantage point, there seemed to be a lot less hype and commetcials about this particular shopping day. (Maybe I’ve just become immune)
My Wife and I were in Denver (100 miles east of our home) at my moms house for t-day. She left Friday morning at 6am to go pick something up for me for x-mas. Was back in about an hour. I have no idea what she got, and it is hidden somewhere in my moms house. I was not allowed in my moms bedroom after ‘it’ (whatever it is) was ‘hidden’. I did notice that my wife put the back seats down in the Subaru Outback for the purchase. Must be pretty big. My Wife is going back to Denver next weekend to pick ‘it’ up from my moms house.
We sometimes do ‘big’ gifts, sometimes just nothing or buy something to open. Or something for both of us. We are lucky in that we want for nothing, and just buy what we want when we need/want something (a bit of and exaggeration, we are quite comfortable, but… well you know).
I don’t ski, I don’t bike ride, I don’t need any more tools, yet it is big enough that she had to put the seat down in the Outback. Hmmm… I can usually guess, but I don’t have a clue. I’m a little scared. But it’s probably something really innocuous like the new best snow shovel or something.
I did show some interest in a quad drone-copter when visiting her family in Texas. Flew it for a few minutes and asked my nephew about it. Pretty cool. But, I think my wife knows that that’s not really my gig. And would consult me before such a purchase as I’m the electronics/computer guy in the house.
I did get my Wife a very nice pair of Frye boots that will be good for horse back riding (a hobby revisited, she was on the equestrian team in college). Can’t have her wearing running shoes while in stirrups, it’s just not safe. Bought them online 30% off on Friday. So I guess I did go shopping on Black Friday. First time as far as I can remember.
To switch buses, we had to walk through the middle of Ala Moana Center, the largest shopping center in Hawaii, seventh largest in the US and largest open-air shopping center in the world. It was not a pretty sight.
I worked it for the first time. It was steady, but not insane. However, our store started the big sale on Thanksgiving at 6:00. Those that have been there forever say it was positively tame compared to previous years and they believed the reason was shopping began for the same items even earlier online. And to me, yeah, it was pretty anti-climactic. Nothing near the days of yore when people were trampled trying to get in the door or fist fights broke out over this season’s Toy du Jour. So I give it a pretty big meh.
Plus, even as late as last night, you could still find some blitz bargains.
We do the whole shebang - not to save money, but because it’s so much fun! My daughter loves shopping on Black Friday, and was annoyed that I refused to go any earlier than 4:30 a.m. We go to a mall about an hour from our house, because it’s so much better than the malls closer to us. We were there until about 10:00, stopped for “lunch” (and were surprised that the restaurant couldn’t serve alcohol until 11:00), then went to smaller strip centers nearby for The Container Store, Target, and Kohl’s. We got home around 4:00, exhausted but happy - it was a great day. The crowds weren’t bad when we were at the mall, but picked up while we were eating lunch - I parked a few spots from the entrance, but by the time we left, cars were parked on the grass medians in the parking lot.
I went to PetCo in the afternoon to see what deals they had on treats (I needed treats) and to get some antlers which are super expensive, and were 50% off on Friday. They also gave me little *Trolls *hats for my dogs which look hilarious but the dogs did. not. like.
After that I ran over to Wal Mart to see if it was crowded because my mom wanted something, and it wasn’t crowded so I offered to get her thing. And it was really tame in there. Like, less crowded than a typical Saturday afternoon.
My friend had been in the area on Thursday night and said it was a madhouse so I guess everyone was done with their Wal Mart needs by 2 PM on Friday, and everyone else was like “Ack, gotta stay away from Wal Mart!” so going to Wal Mart for something was no big deal by then
Oh, I bought some clothes at Torrid which were on sale both Wednesday and Friday, and then something at Lane Bryant online Friday.
All in all I got a bunch of stuff I needed and some good deals so I’m happy with Black Friday again! The best part, IMHO, is that most of the sales are online too.
Technically I did do some shopping on Friday but not for any major bargains. I stopped at a sporting goods store. Got up the the checkout line on what is suppose to be the busiest day of the year and they had 2 of 4 registers open. Seemed kind of odd but I wasn’t running things. I was miffed at the 5 people in front of me until I saw the 20 behind me. So I spent time talking to the other shoppers about the even longer lines they just came from.
Any thoughts of wandering through the mall evaporated.
My sister always does the Black Friday thing and this year my mom and I were laughing at how she went on vacation to Hershey, PA for Thanksgiving and would miss out on it. Joke’s on us – my sister was on Facebook the next day posting from whatever giant mall is in King of Prussia. She also found some Pac Sun store (my nephew’s prime choice) going out of business: Buy 1, Get 2 free. So hats off to her.
mixed bag of online and shopping.
I didn’t go Thursday night since I wasn’t going die hard on getting hi-end items:
Got my Walmart TV dvd sets at $9.96. Really mulled about getting Game of Thrones collection at $10 each but then the day passed so will just have to wait next year. All the prices shot up by Saturday to their regular amts.
SInce I’m a Funko collector, went to a website offering free shipping (had never seen it offered before) and bought one saving shipping and getting a discount. Had same dealio over at Amazon for one marked down to $6.
Then I gave in and went to a local comic shop but had to wait til 1pm to get the 25% discount.
Got Staples deal online for the rebate for software.
An etsy seller I buy often from offered at 15% discount, so I hoarded and bought some Xmas gifts there.
My Cyber Monday piece de resistance. I did go to Barnes Noble actual store to use a 30% coupon for Longclaw. Saw they were selling a Rogue statue truly wanted, and close to getting it online (free shipping and 30% all weekend) and thought naaah never spent that much. Then I saw today still 30% sale for toys so I thought ok, it’s screaming at me to buy, and then today was 15% cyber Monday coupon and got both discounts!
Wasn’t planning on going out Friday - we pretty much quit the Black Friday Madness a few years ago. But, we were bored. Grabbed my also-bored sister and hit a bunch of stores. The only place that was crazy was Kohl’s - the lines wrapped all the way around the store. Lucked out in a few places with deals, but nothing major. Target was very quiet by the time we got there.
My mom, OTOH, has never shopped on Black Friday. She decided to go to Menards when it opened for some super deal (present for her “not a boyfriend”). My daughter offered to go with her, we warned her how mad Menards is on BF, gave her tips on dealing with the crowds. She laughed us off, saying “How bad could it be?”
They opened at 6, she was there at 530, couldn’t find a parking spot. She finally did at 610, tried to get in, was nearly trampled, and they were already sold out of what she wanted to buy. On her way out she had to call 911 due to a fist fight in the parking lot near her truck. She went home and went back to bed.
Some people regard Competitive Shopping as a sport. Good for them!
I’m not one. But will try to drop by The Galleria during the season–for fun & potential shopping. I generally prefer online & little arty shops in convenient little arty neighborhoods…
I wasn’t going to go out on Black Friday, but while trying to decorate my Christmas tree, the part of the topper that connects to the top of the tree snapped off, so I went to the hardware store to get a new one.
Wait for it to hit…yes, I did put up my (artificial) tree on Black Friday, just like I always do, and, also like I always do, I’ll take it down on December 26.
