Back In Black

On Black Friday...that's what stores do...they get "Back in the Black"...they do this by offering crazy amazing deals and publishing their ads in the Thursday paper so that crazy people will stay up all night and shop on Friday...more on that in a moment.

It is the Thomason family tradition to eat a wonderful Thanksgiving meal together on Thanksgiving Day. We call this Grandpa Thanksgiving because this is when we get together with my Grandpa, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mom's side of the family. We have traditional turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, green beans...you know the works...and once we are sufficiently stuffed...it is the tradition of Patty, Melissa, Jenny and Bebe to get out the Thursday paper, start scouring through the ads and making our Black Friday plan of attack list. Now, to successfully shop on Black Friday...you must have a plan of attack. Sometimes this plan includes but it is not limited to...making your shopping list - in order by store opening time, with pictures cut out from the ads - because you need to be able to verify what you saw in the add verses what you find in the store, putting Bebe in line while the rest of us shop and bring her stuff, multiple cell phone calls throughout the store, and/or getting up at 3 a.m. This year the plan included all of these strategies and a few more. We were excited when Kelsie decided to join the fun this year. Here she is with her first Black Friday ad, a pair of paper scissors, and she is getting ready to cut out her very first sale picture ever...

It is very, very exciting when a newbie makes her first cut...and she even talked David her sweet hubbie into going shopping with her...and she talked Gum-Gum and Mimi into letting her girls spend the night with them...Man, this girl is good for a first timer!!!

Here is Melissa's pile. This pile includes my cut out ads, my excel spreadsheet Christmas list, and my K*hl's, Tar-jay and B*lk sale paper. Once I get home from Grandpa's Thanksgiving, I will take a glue stick and glue my pictures to my spreadsheet. Silly me made a rookie mistake and forgot to bring my glue stick to Thanksgiving.

See how the K*hl's ad mentions that there are over 200 Early Bird specials at 4 a.m.??? This years twist was that T*ys R Us was opening for the first time ever at Midnight. That's right I said midnight. There were several midnight early bird specials that the group needed at midnight so our first planned stop was T*ys R Us...at midnight!!!

The plan was to pick up Jenny at 10:55 p.m., Bebe and Sandy at 11:00 p.m. and then Patty at 11:15 p.m., then head to Cool Springs. However, at 10:20 p.m., Kelsie called Bebe from the Murfreesboro T*ys R Us and said that there were 800 people in line and that if we were going, we needed to get on the road and in line. So, we bumped up departure time and headed out. While we were in pick up mode, Bonnie called (because she and Bryan were in Nashville and Kelsie had sent her to check the status of the Cool Springs T*ys), she reported that there were only about 100 people in line at Cool Springs T*ys and that cars were pulling in quickly. We pulled into the parking lot to discover this line...

The end of the line when we pulled up was at HH Gr*gg, which is a 3-4 building strip mall down from the front door of T*ys. As I am walking down the long row of shoppers, I hear "Melissa Workman" being hollered...it is none other than Big T (my racing buddy) and her son Brandon. They had gotten there about 30 minutes before us and had a sweet spot in line.

This pic is a little dark...maybe it has something to do with the fact that is is 11:30 p.m...but here is the gang waiting in line at T*ys...Patty, Bebe, Sandy, Mel and Jenny. This pic was taken so that we could prove to Jason that Sandy could stay up past 9 p.m. By this time our rookie, Kelsie, had given up with all the crazies in M'boro, in fact, David said that he was changing his middle name to David "Retail" Prince and that he had a new respect for the crazy ladies in his family. There was no way we were giving up and then a Black Friday miracle occurred...the fantastic manager of Cool Springs T*ys, came down the long line to pass out "tickets" for some of the midnight specials. Tickets are awesome because if there is a limited number of an item, the retailer gives out tickets, and then you are guaranteed the item once you get in the store. One of the tickets that he had was one of the things Kelsie had wanted. So we grabbed a ticket, called Kelsie and told her that we had a ticket for the pony and not to worry that she and David had bailed on their first outing. Score! The doors opened and we scurried through the store. I got everything on my list, double checked it against my pictures and all 5 of us were successful. All 6 of us, if you count the pony I picked up for Kelsie. :-)

Now, here was the small kink in our plan. Midnight opening at T*ys...then the next store does not open until 4 a.m....so what do you do...stop at Wally World to kill a little time, pee, and then go to Waffle House to have a little 1:30 a.m. snack...

After our snack, we headed to B*lk to take a little nap while we waited for 4 a.m. Here is my truck dash at 2:25 a.m.....after a short snooze, we headed back over to Wally World to pee again...Patty was worried that the people in WW would complain because we were going there a 2nd time to pee but I told her not to worry, we would just tell them we were homeless if they asked...this almost caused Patty to pee in the WW lobby. Back to the B*lk parking lot, just in time for the doors to open.

After B*lk, we hit K*hls at 5 a.m, Tar-jay at 6 a.m. and by 7 a.m. we were headed home. And this is what Mel's truck looks like after 5 women have Christmas shopped Black Friday from midnight to 7 a.m.

During the night, we did decide a couple of things...1) It is much easier to just stay up and shop all night than it is to go to bed, get up at 3 a.m. and start shopping, 2) if T*ys is going to continue to open at midnight, the other stores are going to have to coordinate and open at 2, 3, and 4 a.m. so there is not as much lag time in between openings and 3) next year, I might have to buy a bigger truck. :-)

So, if my truck is any indication....The stores mentioned in my post above should all be "Back in Black"!!!!

Melissa