A Captive Mind

Well, this year we had a great Turkey day.  Full of thankfulness, family and food.  I hope you had a good one too.

We had it at my parents house first, and it was a beautiful setting and the food was delicious.  As soon as I set foot into their home, a little bit early before the feast & before my Aunt’s family arrived, I was amazed at the gorgeous table setting, the way the food had been prepared, everything with care.  It reminded me of our old family holidays.  This was my first married thanksgiving, and I wanted to do my best about preparing everything!  I got up early, made homemade mashed potatoes, two pumpkin pies, cookies, cranberry sauce.  I also made the family’s traditional “Ritz cracker turkeys.”  It was great.  Anyhow, what happens after Thanksgiving?  BLACK FRIDAY.

For some people this is an amazing way to steal a deal, grab a gift, save a penny.. whatever you want to call it, I’ll also take the liberty of calling it ‘subjecting yourself to insanity’!  We all went to see  Harry Potter on the evening of Turkey Day…(it was definitely sad, definitely a teaser, and left you very much on the edge of your seat and never quite satisfied you with the plot)… part one of two… of Seven.  After this much anticipated first half, hubby & I decided we might as well head over to Wal-Mart.  Oh, it’s our tiny town, who would be out shopping at midnight?  The answer was EVERYONE.  And their second cousin twice removed.  He looked over at me, as we approached the masses of vehicles squished together and brimming out of the lot… “Well… I don’t know about this honey…”  He was right.  ”Ok, well, lets just go in, and dash right out if it’s too horrible in there!”  And ‘dash out’ we did.  As soon as we got into the store, my jaw dropped.  It was like a madhouse plus an animal farm… with a dash of crazy garage sale thrown in.  People were grabbing thing off of the shelves, and many things had fallen on the ground.  We began to walk, and then I was thinking it wasn’t that bad… when Troy said “Honey… that’s.. the line.”  The line stretched nearly to the end of the store.  And all of the lines were occupied like this.  We were gone.

Over the course of the next couple of days, we searched throughout other stores to find the remaining “Black Friday” deals.  Big headache of course.  At this material time of year, I always wonder if a hug and a good talk would just be a better present than what we had purchased.  We always go for useful and unique when we buy gifts, but it just doesn’t seem to cut it sometimes.  All of the shelves, with all of their items seem to overwhelm you.  As Troy’s friend Ryan said, “… in the meantime, We’ll be getting our souls eaten by the consumer beast….”   And that’s exactly how we felt.  Standing in the aisles, you try to think of your budget, and your list of individuals who you are buying for… and what they would really want versus what you may be getting them.  Some of the deals really are amazing… some of them may be worth diving around for.  But wouldn’t we really rather have our sanity in place of all of those dollar bills we save on account of the madhouse?

All in all, it’s probably just better to pack up some homemade gifts to give our loved ones, (I actually used to give my parents coupons for certain things… of course, mom always got a good massage coupon that always cost me some good elbow grease, but nothing more, when she cashed in..) and watch a really funny movie.  That way, everyone has a good story to remember and some good laughs to memorialize the night…. and nobody had to go broke for the sake of it.  I’ll probably be giving a few of these so called “homemade” things, so stay tuned for some photos of those goodies.  ;)

Don’t let yourself get eaten by the beast!

Ciao!