Happy Thanksgiving... and some thoughts on shopping...

I hope you and your family enjoyed a safe and happy Thanksgiving with family and friends.  We spent the afternoon with Freddy's family in the city.  It was a fun afternoon and evening with food and drink.

I then did what I've never done before... went shopping on Thanksgiving night!  I refuse to go shopping on Black Friday because I refuse to get up at 4am on any day just to go shopping.  But, seeing some of the awesome deals on Thanksgiving night might have added this little ritual to our Thanksgiving evening activities.

The last week had Facebook blowing up with protests about retail workers required to work on Thanksgiving.  And to be honest, I didn't feel bad about shopping at all tonight.  You see, back when I was in college, I worked at Meijer for almost 6 years.  For those of you who don't know, Meijer is a 24 hour store and the only time they are closed is from 7:00pm on December 24 until 6:00am on December 26.  Every year I worked just about every holiday... which included a 3rd shift on Christmas night to get ready for the day after Christmas sales.  And you know what?  We were asked for volunteers first and then the shifts were filled by seniority with the lowest seniority selected first.  And guess what?  Most of the shifts would fill with volunteers!  I can tell you that holiday pay was a nice bonus so, yes, I was one of those volunteers every year.  It is great to see stores close on holidays, but our economy cannot support everyone shutting down during the holiday season when retailers need a big boost in sales.  And really, why are there no outcries about the Military, Police, Firefighters, EMS, hospital workers, gas station workers, and anyone else I forgot who also have to work every single holiday???  My sister works for the admitting department at a hospital and had to work today as one of the holidays in her rotation.  Just really my opinion on the matter... but we really need to get our priorities in line with our rants these days.  What do you think about Black Friday starting on Thursday night?

Back to my shopping excursion...  I intended to just hit up Michael's, who had a coupon for 30% off all items (including sale items) on top of some pretty good doorbuster sales.  I found my supplies for embossing and some other cute items that I needed for my December Daily project.  I also picked up a Gingerbread House kit that was on sale that I'm going to try with Marshall in the next couple of weeks.  I am planning on putting together my foundation pages for my book this weekend and hope to be able to share them with you Sunday night.

So I leave you with one of the few images where Marshall actually stopped and posed for a picture today.  I'm not sure what he was trying to be.  I'm sure in his head he is a ninja warrior.

~AKO