It’s definitely A Thing in my extended family. The dads are home on kid duty while the moms go out and get frou-frou Christmas coffee drinks, do some shopping, and go out for a long lunch together. I do most of my actual shopping online as “Black Friday” lasts all of November now, but I do enjoy the tradition.

Nope!!!

I accidentally went to Best Buy on Black Friday one year, because I was an idiot and completely forgot that it was a thing (shows you how important it was to me). My younger sibling was a teenager at the time and his birthday is right after Thanksgiving; I had forgotten to buy him a present and it was too close for something to come in time in the mail, so I went to Best Buy to get him a new Nintendo 64 controller. It was like 2pm and the line to check out was wrapped around the store. I was like, "Wow, the customer service here is terrible, is the register broken or something? Why are there so many people in line?" I was about halfway to the front when I realized what day it was. At that point the time was a sunk cost and I decided if I was going to be stupid, I might as well go all in, plus I still needed a present and figured all the stores would be the same, so I waited in line for over an hour to check out.

At least the controller was a hit with my sibling and got heavy use, but I learned my lesson. Never again. I have a friend who got up at 4am on Black Friday one year to go stand in line at Staples. Why? On multiple levels, why?

I once got up at the crack of dawn on Black Friday to go to JC Penney to buy a Furby.

Yes. I generally buy a suit on black Friday. So I go to one or two stores, try a few on, get one, and immediately return home. I don't find a suit to be something I can easily get online, the fitting is too particular.

Anonymous wrote:I love it and get my paper tomorrow and plan all the stops and go have a blast. Totally a family thing!

How much is that Washington post now? Last time I got the Thanksgiving sales ads the post was like $6 or something.

Anonymous wrote:I love it and get my paper tomorrow and plan all the stops and go have a blast. Totally a family thing!

Where do you go?

I love it and get my paper tomorrow and plan all the stops and go have a blast. Totally a family thing!

Not anymore. I will go out later in the day because it is a happy and festive time of year.

But I remember in 1999 and 2000, lining up at Best Buy at 5:00 am on Black Friday for all the deals that required rebates. PITA but fun. I stopped when people started lining up Thanksgiving day.

Anonymous wrote:Is cyber Monday still a thing?

Not really. Most of the online deals are around veterans day. You end up paying more after Thanksgiving.

When I was young and we had bought a house, I went for the first few years to buy the rebate cookware and other kitchen stuff. After accumulating a bunch of junk, I stopped going. Unable to brave the crowds these days. This year my teen wants to go to the outlets for some brand name clothes so we may go. Never was brave enough to go to Walmart on Black Friday even then. I used to go to Target around 11am and got some decent deals in years past.

No way. Better deals online and fewer mouthbreathers.

Is cyber Monday still a thing?

Anonymous wrote:I went a few years ago when I was visiting family in Massachusetts. It started at midnight, we drove through the dark forest to get to the mall. The security people in charge of the mall traffic were all good looking!
We saw some pretty remarkable scenes like a bunch of middle eastern looking men loading trunkfuls of discounted Kate Spade in front of the store. Very long lines and a lot of excited people. It was a somewhat surreal experience.

Where I live, I tried to go once, but it all started about 8 pm on Thursday and it was impossible to find parking. People looked ugly and low class at that mall, too. We turned around and went home.
Nowadays Black Friday starts in the morning, s it’s become zero fun. I don’t go anymore.

Why are you so obsessed with how people look?

One of my college DCs loves doing it and may go with friends or with me if I am up to it. IO tend to do a lot of online Black Friday (which seemed to start a week ago everywhere) shopping.