Christmas shopping

The day after Americans pause and give thanks for all the blessings in their lives, we evidently go shopping. Black Friday has gone from a convenient shopping day for a lot of people who have time off of work to a shopping event of massive proportions.

Cas and I slept pretty late on Black Friday while many were camping out in store parking lots, trying to get an early bird bargain or a door buster deal. 

Cas and I decided to make our one destination the liquor store with 10% off all purchases. 

Seemed like the best kind of Black Friday shopping we could have done. When we had picked up what we wanted, Cas went back to work in his office at home and I headed out to the Kohl's across the street to pick up a few new things to wear. 

Later on in the weekend at a Walmart, I saw the best deal I've seen. Maybe ever: 

It's a pretty standard week at work, now. The kids all came back, for better or worse. Two days remain this week, and next week is also a pretty normal one. The week after that holds our newspaper distribution date on a Monday and four days of final exams after that. We're almost to the halfway point with this year, and I'm excited about Christmas. 

Cas and I have a tree up, and we're wrapping things as they appear on the porch: 

After that, we're off to South Carolina to see my big brother for New Year's Eve. That should be a lot of fun, and I'm sure Jeff will be glad to see us. 

As for the Christmas shopping, I'm almost done for both Cas and me. We have a few things to do, and we will get to them, but anything we were going to buy online has already been purchased. I love to be ahead of the game...