We had a good Thanksgiving this year - nothing big and fancy, just immediate family, which was nice.  I had dessert duty this year so I made a pie and at Kaiden’s request, because she does not like pie, I made some cheesecake brownies.  I wanted to choose something different for a pie instead of the normal apple or pumpkin, so I made a Hoosier Sweet Cream pie, served with whipped cream and toasted coconut.  It turned out pretty good and was super dooper easy to make.

Right after dinner I had to excuse myself and haul butt over to Nadine’s house for our annual Black Friday all-nighter.  We start planning for this weeks in advance, when the Black Friday ads start leaking.  We start making our lists and consulting with each other on game plans, which stores we want to hit, etc.

Here I am on my way over to Nadine’s house, looking all fresh-faced and in a great mood.  Ready to conquer Black Friday and all it throws at me.  Our first destination was Toys R Us.  They were opening up at 10:00pm on Thanksgiving night.  We showed up to get into the line at around 8:20pm.

We were actually quite happy with our placement in line this year.  Last year we were way in the back of the buildings, it was INSANE.  We waited in this line for quite a while - but did not mind at all this year, since the weather was actually cooperating.  It was almost 70 degrees and clear.  Last year it was in the 40’s and pouring rain.  Big difference.

Here we are in line… happy to be there and excited to be kicking off our night.  We had our lists in hand and had our gameplan down.  Nadine would take the cart and immediately get into the electronics line.  I would take both of our lists and run around the store like a mad woman, coming back every so often to make a dump into the cart, then we would switch, and so on, until we got into electronics to get the Wii and DS games we needed and checkout.  The big thing that Nadine wanted from here was a $79 netbook for Brianna, which we were too far back in the line to get a ticket for and that none of the Toys R Us employees were willing to try to get for us in exchange for a hand-job in one of the aisles (god knows we offered and offered)... but lucky Nadine “found” a ticket sitting on the counter as we were checking out and ended up scoring one.  I am pretty sure if I had kicked her any harder under the counter I would have broken her shin in half.

Next we hit the midnight opening of Old Navy for cheap jeans and leggings for the kids.  We thought we were going to have to go to the one in another city (25 minute drive), since it had an exterior entrance, unlike the mall location right behind the Toys R Us where we already were - like we had to do last year… but luck struck again and the mall was opening up for the sale.  WE WERE STOKED!

SO stoked that I ALMOST considered buying this hat for myself just to commemorate the occasion.  Then I got back to reality and remembered this night was not about me, it was about the kids.  The general public should let out a huge sigh of relief that I did come to this realization and am not walking the streets in that hat.  Nadine once again had a stroke of luck after searching the whole store for a certain type of jeans for Big Kev, we rounded the corner to the registers and there was ONE pair sitting out of place and just so happened to be the size she needed.  We couldn’t believe it!  After Old Navy we hit the 2am opening of Kohls.  There really was not anything we needed there, but we had to do something to stay awake until Target opened at 4am.

At around 3am we rolled up to Target, ready to wait in line again.  It looked like it had rained at this point… but being that it was our lucky night, we missed it.

At halfway through the night, we were not looking so bright-eyed anymore.  We were now relying on multiple cups of coffee to keep the momentum going.  We got through Target relatively quickly and painlessly, getting all that we could on our lists, and saving what we couldn’t get for Wal-Mart, where they would price match Target’s prices.

It was when we were almost done with Target that Nadine started going loopy and had me laughing so hard I almost wet my pants several times thanks to all the 20oz coffees.  After Target, we hit up the 5am opening of Wal-Mart where we crossed off the rest of our lists. 

We did have to make a quick trip back to Target again, but were in and out with no trouble at all - well, almost, I did collapse at this point from exhaustion.

In the end, we made out like bandits!  The kids will be very happy on Christmas.  We both stayed within our pre-planned budgets and saved a shit-ton of money.  My total savings were right at $497.55 - completely awesome and for me, was totally worth the night without sleep.  I probably would have done it regardless, because of how much fun Nadine and I have.  Time to start gearing up and planning for next year!  :coffee: