I’ve worked Black Friday. For me it wasn’t hard; most of the preparations were done in the run up to Black Friday: ordering more coins, counting out extra register bags, and helping verify we were adequately staffed.

I’ve occasionally shopped it, but in general the deals available were for things I wasn’t really interested in; this year it helped that if I went, I’d be hauling two kids under the age of five along. We do okay in most situations, but long lines and holding still aren’t among our favorite things.

This year, as I mentioned before, we decided to spend Black Friday doing a holiday organization binge instead.

Part of the plan involved selling things on our local craigslist. I came up with this at the last moment, and actually didn’t end up selling anything. Next year I may work with our Home Ogres Association and try to drive the idea of a community garage sale weekend for those of us who don’t travel Thanksgiving weekend.

Cataloging the books didn’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped, but we did get almost two hundred added to our database. I kept the kids busy running back and forth between the rooms with the books and our little home office, carrying our collection. Over the next few days, we’ll round up the rest of them and finish our list.

We ended up using librarything; very useful and handy. I have not yet paid up for a lifetime membership, but I want to do it soon to tie into the backlog of Wolfie and Heliv things I’d like to be posting in a family blog.

This heavy book action also ended up theming our holiday gifts this year. Most everyone is getting something hand made or or book-related: Wolfie’s cousins and a few friends (who are thankfully not reading this blog … yet) are mostly getting books I picked out with the help of their parents (to target the kids right and to prevent duplication) and a little something hand made if I can get my act together on time.

I was hoping to further use Black Friday time with the kids to have them help me make something for their teachers for the season, but that only would have happened if we’d kept to a strict time-table. Instead, we lazed about with books and games, and popped out to see Enchanted when dad came home early. We’ll see what I come up with before the holiday deadlines smack me about; I’d like to balance practical and warmly generous. While obliterating every memory of the chocolate home made treat disaster of last year. :(

No Comments »