Thursday is the day Thanksgiving. The day where we give thanks. We give thanks to each other and the country and generally blow smoke up each others asses.
This post is no different. Today the Coots would like to thank everyone who comes here and reads this silly blog, or as it should be called, Ralph Carlson’s second blog.
Personally, I would like to thank Ralph for keeping this thing afloat and running. I would like to thank Bob for pretending to care about this site. Continue reading »
Well folks it is now Wednesday and most of the turkey should be flushed from your system and allowing you to get back to work. It has been a weekend. Now, the fun begins. Holiday shopping. Black Friday was last week. My wife said it was a good day, there were only 2 stabbings during the rush to get the deals.
Let’s look now at what the rest of the season holds. Twinkly lights, fat guys in red suits, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding as you try to enter every store. All of this and money. Your hard earned money draining from your wallet and into other people’s coffers. And yes, credit cards count in this, unless, you are planning on charging everything and then running off to another part of the country with a new name and letting Visa figure it out. If that is you, morepow er to you, I hope the electric chair is comfortable.
For the rest of us, it gets trickier. You see I don’t have any credit cards. I don’t want them, I don’t need them. I can’t handle them responsibly in my opinion so I don’t use them. Which gets sticky at this time of year when almost all of our income is used for things like rent, power, gas (oh yes we are running on fumes close to payday). How to buy Christmas presents for 4 little kids? Extra work.
For me, it should be any work at all. I could make more money tomorrow, if I got a piece of cardboard and a marker and hung out by WalMart. So please shop at amazon through our affiliate link over there in the sidebar. It will pay for the hosting to keep this site up and running and give me that much more from my wife’s paycheck to spend for Christmas. But I digress.
Is it the things we get for Christmas that make us happy? Sometimes. Is it truly the thought that counts? Maybe. Is there a giant wad of cash that is going to be dropped from my bank account in the next 3 weeks? Yes. Should we just give each other cash and forget about it? Should we just give up the gift thing altogether? Probably. A couple of years ago we decided that we were not going to buy presents for the family, at least kid to kid. They would have to make or otherwise modify something for a gift. That has been fun to actually make the gifts for each other.
This year we are trying to follow the same formula but it really seem slike most of the good ideas are gone and what is the point anymore? Icarved some stone charms and made necklaces for the kids last year as good luck charms. I have all of them in a cup on my desk now, picked up from the floors and various other places in the house. Nowhere near their necks as good luck charms. I am thinking that this year I will give them a stick and let them figure out what it is for. Then, after we get back from getting stitches and a concussion taken care of, I will be smiling on the inside.
So, this Christmas season is fast approaching. Gifts are expected. Gifts will be given and received. What are you planning on doing about all of this nonsense? Me, I would just like a nap.
talk later.
-Justin
Do you get caught up in the business of what has become common in these here United States and gone forth into the great unknown that is Black Friday? You know you get a newspaper chocked full of advertisements to make your kids drool and then you head out into the cold early in the morning (or late at night) to get a “deal” on these things?
Well as I type this it is almost 7am. decent people should be asleep or just waking up if you are one of those “morning” type people. I am not one of those. Still, Toys R Us opened on Thanksgiving night at 2200, sorry, 10 pm to let the sales start. Walmart started selling stuff at 1201 am. Sometimes I am still amazed at the lengths that parents go to to make Christmas special for their kids. (*note, this is a stock picture and not of the toys r us I was at. if it were, I would have started about beyond the picture at least double if not triple the people that are shown here*)
Tonight I saw some very interesting points of Humanity. I saw grumblers and malcontents waiting in line with the placid and the comical, all hoping to get inside the store before the 12 degrees afforded to us by a doozy cold front froze parts that we would rather have not frozen. I saw people just grabbing things, for the sole purpose that they were on sale and then proceeding to misread the 20 items or less sign and seem to see an extra zero on it. I could blame fatigue, but it was on 0230 at that point.
One thing I didn’t see was people fighting over things. I have always heard stories of things coming to blows over a toy or a movie, but I didn’t see any of that. I guess the earlier times opening helped out with that. I also saw people in relatively good spirits. People who were forced to be together by the commercialness that Christmas has become. But most people were nice to each other, or ignored most everyone else (like I did) while plugged into my MP3 player. I thought at one point that there was some hope, albeit small and shrunken like the raisin you find under the stove next spring, that humanity can endure.
So yes I fell, no jumped, into the quagmire that is Black Friday and came out tired but unscathed on the other side. It made me all the more happy that we decided to have our kids make gifts for each other and for the Grandparents. It beats waiting in the cold. And then I got a call from my wife that you could get darn near everything online for the same price. What a load of crap.
I would so love it if anyone reading this would regale us with tales of Black Friday present or Black Friday past. The comment section is lonely and wants to hear from you. Yes you, guy in the red shirt, leave a comment! And then please share via one of the many exciting social networking sites listed below.
Thanks for reading, I can’t wait to hear your stories.
-Justin
Yes ladies and gents, it is finally here, the time we have all been waiting anxiously for, the best holiday of the year, Black Friday! Holy cow can you believe that Black Friday 2011 is here?!? I am so excited I could almost pee myself.
Image via Wikipedia
I don’t care about anything else today, it is Black Friday and I am going to get some Christmas presents or die trying. I want to end up in the hospital with a broken bone or two because I had to fight that one guy for the last Barbie Dream house at Toys R Us. I want to shed blood in the pursuit of the commercial aspect of Christmas.
Christmas is now relegated to my third favorite holiday behind (in order) Black Friday and then Halloween. I can’t believe that Christmas has hung on this long as the most popular holiday when Black Friday has been here for so long. I am so going to throw away any part of the Christmas holiday that has to do with the Savior because, let’s face it, He isn’t going to be having any doorbusters right on the heels of Black Friday Eve, previously known as Thanksgiving.
Greed and violence seem to mark Black Friday and what two aspects of a holiday could be better together. If you aren’t standing in line waiting to leave with your $5 DVD player then you are watching your cart like a hawk to make sure that shifty looking guy in the black hat isn’t going to take it out of your cart.
Maybe we should curb some of the greedy grabbing that goes on by requiring everyone who is serious about shopping on this most glorious of holidays to carry a gun. Sure some people are going to get shot, but that is the price you pay for stealing out of other people’s carts. And because you are celebrating a holiday you can claim it was religious insanity and get off the hook for the shooting because the Judge would rather be out celebrating as well.
So folks, here is what you need to do. Forget all about being nice. Forget all about the “reason for the season.” Focus on the gifts. Aunt Mary really needs that 5 pound tub of popcorn. Cousin Jim will love the Old Spice sampler pack. Mom will be thrilled with a novelty frying pan packed with a candle that sort of smells like Paula Deen. Wait, that is a Paula Deen branded novelty frying pan with a candle that smells like pie. And of course don’t forget Dad, that summer sausage and cutting board set is just calling his name.
Then there are the kids. If you watch tv long enough you will find all of the things that you need to go out and but immediately. Ignore anyone who says “Make your gifts” or anyone who mentions anything religious. Your new religion is Black Fridayism.
My Mother in law joined us for Thanksgiving yesterday and she had to leave before pie time because she had to join the cult of Black Friday. People heading to Wal-mart right after dinner to get a few bucks off of toys are the real winners, the clergy of the Church of the Black Friday.
Let Black Friday take you places. You will submit. You are joining a cult. You are wandering down a long, deserted road. There is a sign post up ahead. Next stop, the Black Friday zone.
You have been warned. Go buy some meaningless presents and convince the family that it really was the thought that counts.
See you next week.
-Justin
You read right folks, today is not Thanksgiving, it is Black Friday Eve. If you haven’t, read Ralph’s post from yesterday, he explains things well. So is this the first step to abolishing Turkey Day? I was driving around the other day trying to get the last of the stuff for Thanksgiving, I mean Black Friday Eve, and all I saw was Christmas stuff and Black Friday sales.
It was Monday of this week and Wal-Mart had already discounted what little Thanksgiving stuff (napkins, plates and the like) they had. I didn’t see one “Happy Thanksgiving” banner or anything that didn’t have to do with the mighty and all powerful Black Friday. Commercials on the TV are toting the virtues of black Friday and opening up stores at midnight, if they even are closed for Thanksgivng Black Friday Eve.
I have to say this MUST be the beginning of the end. Soon the turkey tradition will be gone, replaced with Black Friday specials at Burger King, Chick-Fil-A and Sizzler (just 3 places that I saw who were open on Black Friday Eve.) We will soon grab a whopper and go home to not watch football games, but whole hour long blocks of commercials sponsored by Toys-R-Us and Wal-Mart.
Amazon.com will probably join in and offer Black Friday Eve promotions that start at 10 AM on the Thursday that used to be Thanksgiving. Like Ralph said yesterday, there is no differentiation between holiday’s anymore. I try very hard to keep Christmas separate from everything else. I fight tooth and nail in order to keep Christmas from invading until after Thanksgiving.
It still trickles in not long after the Halloween decorations go down. I am accepting this little by little but I will be damned if that tree is up and decorated before the turkey carcass is cooled. But there are deals and presents available sometime around election day. Bah. Humbug. Even the bell ringers were out on that Monday BEFORE Thanksgiving, er Black Friday Eve.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
I for one will not be participating in Black Friday festivities this year. Despite the lack of money to participate, I have lost the desire to brave the cold and crowds for a few good deals that are mostly gone by the time I get there. On the news last Saturday, there were already people camping out at Best Buy. What a load of, well, this is still supposed to be a PG-13 blog so I had better save that line. You get the gist of it. Plus, if you want a secret, MOST of the deals you can get on Black Friday are also available online. Many you can get at Amazon for nearly the same price right now.
Speaking of Amazon, if you like this blog and would like to help Ralph, Bob and myself spread some Christmas cheer, please link to Amazon with our affiliate link over there in the right sidebar. It will take you to Amazon.com where you can shop to your hearts content and not pay anymore than you normally would. We just get a small portion for sending you there. Enough commercial.
Are you planning on hitting the sales this Black Friday or even this Black Friday Eve? Are you giving up? Are you going to attempt to hang onto tradition and have THANKSGIVING?!?!? I am. I would like to hear your plans down in the comments.
for now, I have to check some ads and try to figure out what to get people for Christmas. I did just get an email about quality fake ids…
Have a good one,
-Justin