I survived.

[baronessekat]

Thanksgiving itself was fairly uneventful. Low key with just my mother, sister, aunt and uncle. Food was, as always, delicious. And after dinner, while my mother and uncle discussed geneology my aunt, sister and I poured through the great pile of Black Friday ads to see what to go shopping for.

See, sis and I have a tradition we started a good 6 years ago or so. (Maybe less, maybe more I can't remember). We get up and head to the Galleria Mall, which is the largest mall in the Buffalo area. Now, we are not part of that insane "have to be there when the store opens" crowed. More of the "Let's aim to get there about an hour or so before the end of the doorbuster sales and if the things we would like are still in stock great, if not.. oh well" school of thinking.

Over the past years the mall has actually been fairly lowkey. In fact, several years ago, athersgeo came over from England for a visit during the holidays and we took her there and had to constantly say, "we know you got warned about the hell of Black Friday, believe us, it's usually A LOT busier than this". This year there were actually a lot more people there.

We had about a 30 minute wait in line at Bon Ton (but I'm sorry, when you can get sets of flannel sheets that are normally $116 a set for $16.95 - you put up with standing in line for half an hour.). We met a very nice pair of ladies who came down from Toronto just to go shopping. They told me that Canada doesn't have the kind of sales exeperience like Black Friday. That surprised me as I thought Boxing Day would have been the Canadian equivalent.

There was the usual "things over heard in line" situations. One of which I will put in my next post because I'm going to make it into a challenge for my readers.

After we got out of Bon Ton, we went and did our other Black Friday tradition... we went and saw a movie. This year was Goblet of Fire. I liked it. Thought they left a lot out but understood why they had to in order to keep it from being 8 hours long.

Then after the movie off to do more shopping.

We left the mall about 4:45 (having gotten there at about 10-ish) and went to Pier 1 and Target.

Then the fun began. What normally takes me about 15 minutes to drive ended up taking 45. We got slammed with snow. Horrible visibility, white out conditions, the works. So rather than take the sister home, she ended up crashing at my place which is closer to the mall than Moms.

The weather this morning said we got 10 inches at the airport, which means 10 inches at my place (as I'm only about 5 blocks from it). I have to go out and shovel so that when she wakes up, I can take sis home. Then to finish up a little bit.

All I need to do is get stuff for said sister (hard to really shop for her when she's there with me), Morguhn and Ro. (Meirwen... any suggestions for them???) But otherwise I'm pretty much done. Boo and Boogie are done save for one item that is only on sale today. Meirwen's done. The squire brothers and sisters are done. Mom's done. Even the little gifties for the girls at work are done.

Right on schedule for me. Just need xmas cards, and put up the tree and I"m ready for Christmas.

Now all I have to do is go shovel out the driveway.

Hope everyone else had a good and happy holiday.

Comments

[damedini.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the ladies from Toronto were talking about. I went out to stores yesterday and it was horrific. The stores were jammed and people were behaving appallingly. Just like the States. And Boxing Day *is* worse.
But I have almost all my shopping done, the rest to be done in smaller shops and boutiques.

Duke and Duchezz

[meirwen.livejournal.com]

Well...for one thing, "Christmas" is actually going to be in January, the week before my birthday, so you may want to hold off and hit the after Christmas sales. (BTW, can we crash for 12th Night?).

Ro wants edible gold. Not something I can get in Utica. Otherwise, she, as usual, hasn't been very helpful (vampire books are good, though, especially ones that have more horror than romance).

Morguhn is harder. Most of what he needs is fairly large ticket. We've about maxed out his space in terms of knicknaky stuff. He wants gloves, but he's hard to fit. I'd suggest really practical stuff that he can use for armor building, maintenance, and repair. Most of his stuff needs an overhaul, and since he won't be fighting much due to the surgeries, it might be good for him to have stuff to work with.

Ya'll are hard this year, because while I see lots that is good, I keep seeing something else, and then forget what I saw last. This is your brain. This is your brain on school. Any questions?

Sorry about the storm. I can relate.

Re: Duke and Duchezz

[baronessekat.livejournal.com]

12th night... no problem.