I really hate to call it Black Friday. By Friday I was sleeping in my
bed at home, shopping all done! We ALWAYS hit up Toys'R'Us. They have
the best deals around and are always very organized. They only allow in a
certain number of people & regulate the flow in according to how
many people leave. This way it never gets too crowded. They also always
have tons of the sale items. This year we had the biggest list EVER! We
have a very strategic plan going in. We use those little sticky flags to
mark all the pages in the ad we need toys from, then we circle all the toys on
that page along with how many we need of each. We always bring someone
just to stay with the cart (this year my 15 year old brother got that
job), that way we can run & grab things & just throw them in the
cart & go back out. Once we got an item we marked it out in the ad
& removed the flag. This year went really well. We got there about
4:45, I took this photo when we first arrived.
By the time the store opened at 8 the line was around the side of the building & well around the back & cars were still POURING in. You can always tell the people who haven't come out before by their face, utter shock & disbelief at the line! It was really tame & everyone was really polite, no pushing or anything.
We got inside with the first batch of people. We were able to get all of the items at the top of our list. The only things we didn't get were things that were VERY last and they only had a few of them to begin with! We got to checkout within 35 minutes. By 9, we were through the checkout & on our way to the car! This is what our car looked like, the seats were folded down & it was full all the way to the front seats! There was LOTS of pink this year!
This left the most interesting subject of where to HIDE all this stuff! We have a storage unit, so it will probably get moved there but for now we couldn't leave it in the car, so it ended up in our master bath. The kids NEVER go in our bathroom, and even if they do, they would never move back the shower curtain. The shopping was a huge success. We saved over 60% & got the kids pretty much everything for Christmas. We usually buy one large gift, or two smaller gifts that are from Santa. We also usually give the kids 3 decent sized gifts from us, just like the wise men gave baby Jesus. Also, we do a couple of smaller stocking stuffer type gifts or smaller presents from Santa. We didn't really try to spend the same amount of money on each child, its pointless. With our son being so much older, his gifts are just more costly, hands down. 
