Thanksgiving and the Shrinking Family

This year was a strangely small Thanksgiving.  My family is shrinking, you see.  My siblings and I are all single now, and I'm the only one with custody of children.  My parents are divorced, too.  My grandparents have all passed away.  My aunt passed away as well, and her husband, my uncle, moved down to Florida.  And so it goes.  We had nine people at the table this year, instead of the usual 20-odd.  It felt . . . weird.

But the dinner was lovely, and we all gave something to be thankful for.  And there was much catching up.  The food, of course, was wonderful.  It was a Day of Many Pies.  When I was baking them, the recipes that said they made one pie ended up making two, for some reason, so we had lots of dessert!

Black Friday 2012

Sometimes I shop on Black Friday, sometimes I don't.  But I have a secret:

I never, ever shop for toys or electronic.

The toy and electronic stores are absolute madhouses.  The one time I tried them, I found myself waiting in line for over an hour to save myself $40. My hourly writing time is worth a lot more than that.  So I've sworn off the toys and electronics.

Ah, but the clothes!

Since everyone is so frantic to save a few dollars in other departments, the clothing stores are always dead, dead, dead.  I go in early in the morning, find lots of wonderful stuff the boys (and I) really need, and there the savings are significant.  Plus, the lines are short or non-existent.

Today I went to the mall, for example, and got quite a lot of clothes the boys very much need, and a few things for myself, including new jeans (I'm at my high school size again, thank you very much).  Lines?  Very short.  Twice I got a sales clerk who was idle.  So nice!