I think the worst thing about John's job is that we can never travel for Thanksgiving. Last year we stayed in Knoxville and my parents drove over for the weekend, and the year before that we stayed in Florida and had dinner with some of John's extended family. This year we decided at the last minute we wanted to just stay home to avoid the stress of packing, driving, and hopping between both families in a 36 hour time period. We had told my mom she was welcome to come over, and the morning of Thanksgiving, she did just that, arriving here at 11:00.
Because it was just the three of us, we made plans to eat at Cracker Barrel after Hannah Grace woke up from her nap. Well, she woke up and we got to Cracker Barrel at about 2:30 only to be told there was a 90 minute wait. We were already hungry (and there was NO WAY I was going to have an 18 month old Hannah Grace hang out in the store part of the restaurant for that long-- too many breakables). So we drove until we found the next open restaurant, Ruby Tuesday. I really have no idea why they were open-- they didn't have any sort of Thanksgiving special, so Mom, John, and I got burgers and their salad bar. Far from traditional, but everything was really good.
We went back home, hung out, and Mom and I deliberated over going to Target's midnight opening. We decided we would go, but Mom needed to take a nap beforehand so she could would be energized for the late night shopping adventure. Originally I didn't want to leave the house until 11:30. However, upon seeing friends' in other parts of the state Facebook statuses about the crazy lines (at 10:00), I got my mom up and said we needed to leave at 10:30 or so. We made it out by 10:45 and got to Target at 11:00. The line was already long, and we decided to just wait in the car until they opened. Then we decided to just go to Wal-Mart to see what that was like-- it was INSANE. Because they started many of their deals at 10pm, the lines were ridiculous and people were EV.ER.Y.WHERE.
So we left the madness.
And went to Target, which, believe it or not, wasn't so bad. We walked up to the store right as they were letting people in, and Mom and I trekked to the end of the (very) long line. The doors opened at midnight, and it was 12:15 before we got inside. Once we were in, I bolted for the toy section, and was able to grab a set of mega bloks for Hannah Grace. They are about $20 (even on Amazon), but Target had them for $10, and I had a $3 off coupon, so I only had to pay $7. And yes, that was the only reason I wanted to go to Target at midnight and wait for an hour to check out. BUT I got her a couple of other things really inexpensively, and I had a good time just hanging out with Mom.
After an hour of shopping, we realized how long the line was (it started in the very back and weaved in and out of the aisles alone the perimeter of the store). Despite the long line (and probably 300 people waiting), it actually moved fairly quickly. I was so surprised at how organized everything was-- definitely better than how Wal-Mart ran their ship!
We got home at 2:30 and pretty much went straight to bed. Hannah Grace woke up at 6:30 (after sleeping in until 8:00 for two weeks straight, go figure), so she, Mom, and I went to Lifeway for their 7:00 opening. I got Hannah Grace a couple of Veggies Tales DVDs super cheap! They had a pretty good sale on a lot of other stuff, but I wound up just sticking with the DVDs. We were in line for awhile here, and once we left we just came home and let Hannah Grace take a nap. We were SO tired.
On Saturday we spent some of the day shopping-- I wanted to take advantage of some deals Ulta had going on, and we wound up at Kohl's and bought some Christmas decorations. We had made reservations with Cracker Barrel for their Thanksgiving to-go dinner, so we picked that up for dinner! It was unbelievable how much food they gave us for $50-- turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, corn bread, biscuits, gravy, and three sides (we had macaroni, green beans, and mashed potatoes). YUM-O!
Mom left Sunday morning as we were leaving for church, and once we got home from church, I got to take a nice, long nap! Shopping is exhausting! ;)
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