Black Friday craziness

I turned off my alarm. I didn’t want to wake up our kids. I could still see light from a street lamp outside of our house peaking through the window; however, I reached over and gently nudged my wife. She let out a groan and got up to get dressed.  

We had made a deal. I would start decorating the house for Christmas and spend the morning with the kids, while she went out on Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving and the start of our holiday shopping — and searched for a few items we hoped to have under the tree for the kids on Christmas morning.

I did not envy my wife. I knew she would face a mob of shoppers. I told her to text me updates on her progress. Her first text said that she had gotten a deal on some stocking stuffers, small items we would throw in the kid’s stockings. Next, she told me that she had found the GameBoy games that my daughter and son wanted but hadn’t found the talking Leapfrog LeapPad that she wanted to get our youngest son.

She updated me too on the craziness of the other shoppers. One guy tried to walk away with a hard-to-find gaming system that another shopper had put in his cart. A couple in front of her were fighting with the store manager. All the while, my wife was just trying to pick up a few things on sale and get out of the store. She wasn’t able to find everything on her list, but fortunately she was home in a few hours.

We haven’t gone shopping on Black Friday in many years. Our kids are all grown now, but I saw a Black Friday commercial this week and was taken back to those early years of parenthood. Online shopping has put a dent in brick-and-mortar store sales, but businesses made an estimated $40 billion in Black Friday sales last year. They’re expecting similar numbers this year.

There’s no question that Black Friday is one of the biggest days for shopping in the U.S.

Of course, we learned our lesson.

Yes, yes, the kids all loved their presents. But what did we find when we walked into the living room later on Christmas day? Did we find them playing with their new toys? Heck, no, we found the three of them using the empty wrapping paper rolls to hit each other.

“Run you pirate!”

“Daddy, she’s calling me names!”

And our youngest sat on the floor, laughing and squealing with delight and hitting the other two any time they came close to him. Of course, I mentioned that I didn’t think that’s what the priest at Christmas Eve mass had in mind when he prayed for “Peace on Earth,” but the three of them just looked at me.

Yea, we could have skipped the Black Friday sales altogether, waited until Christmas Eve, bought a couple rolls of wrapping paper for $10 to $20 and made everyone happy.

Oh, the joys of Christmas!