Whole-Hearted Holiday

It's been ten days since The Surgery, and having survived Sneeze Fest '08 and a slight fall off the no-more-painkiller wagon, I think we are pretty much back in business. At least enough for a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and some Black Friday shopping madness.

Yesterday was a peaceful day.

We watched the parade, football, and Hancock.

The kids made turkeys for all the dinner guests, played with the seemingly endless number of cousins at their disposal, and let Uncle Daryl build Kapla towers on their faces.

We ate...

...and ate...

...and then ate some more.

And it felt so good.

The tradition among my sisters (and usually my mother) and me is to brave the crowds on the day after. Last year I had decided that there wasn't anything worth losing sleep over and I did not go. I described this experience to Jill as "having a hole in my heart." And when trying to convince me to go this year, Melissa suddenly remembered that she was "mad" at me for not going last year, and we just can't have that. So after perusing the ads several times over, I decided there were enough bargains to entice me out of a post-turkey slumber. At 4:15. AM.

The first stop was Walmart, the epitome of Black Friday chaos. I have been there enough to know how to work it. We were totally thrown for a loop this year, however, when we pulled into the parking lot at 4:45 and saw people walking into the store. What? They changed all the rules on us! The store was still not "open," though, and there were several announcements warning us to not put any merchandise into our carts until 5. Are you kidding me? Look, people, you cannot let the general public into this place on a day like today and then expect them to follow your "rules." These are people willing to inflict physical harm to their fellow shoppers in order to get a flat screen TV. I don't think they are going to refrain from throwing $9 DVDs and a couple pairs of slippers in their carts in the process, 5:00 AM or not.

I personally had to wait in a separate line for the item I was getting. All the way in the back of the store, with Mr. Cigarette Breath breathing down my neck. In a line that did not start moving at 5, due to a credit card scanner malfunction. At least that was the rumor being floated back to us. But soon, we (my fellow wait-in-liners and I) began crawling to the check out line, among speculation that they might run out before it was our turn. We watched cart after cart leave with multiple boxes. Mr. C.B. and wife gave up. But the rest of us (including a loud, obnoxious trouble-maker a couple people behind me) stuck it out and were rewarded for our patience. I can't be sure how many people down the line could say the same, but I am not concerned about them...it's their own fault for arriving at 4:50.

The one fatal error Melissa and I made was not sending her to the front check out lines while I was still waiting. That was where the plan of streamlined, efficient shopping completely collapsed. The Walmart experience should have been 30 minutes less that it was, but both Melissa and I still accomplished what we had set out to do.

On to Old Navy (piece of cake!), Joann's (child's play, if you go to the cutting table in the BACK of the store), and Bed Bath and Beyond (I stayed in the car for this one). Again, a bit longer than originally anticipated, but successful nonetheless. I came home to well-fed kids (including Tyler and Becca, who had slept over) and a semi-clean kitchen. Also a splitting headache and slightly swollen lower right quadrant.

But the sun is shining, I got to take a little nap, the kids have kept busy with cousins and Play Station, and tonight is Pizza and Movie Night. I am one step closer to a complete holiday season. And this year, my heart is full.