Black Friday

Whew! I just returned from a 4 hour shopping spree with my mom. She came and picked me up at 7:30am, we hit the stores around 8 (had to go back to her house first to get a coupon she forgot) and shopped until almost noon. I can't believe I'm not more tired than I am. We went to:

Sears
Macy's
Dress Barn
(We peeked into Old Navy, decided it was too insane, then moved on to Bath and Body works, which mom rebelled at when she saw the mobs inside.)
Target
Circuit City (which had sold out of what I wanted)

As the hour got later, the crowds got worse, and the drivers got crankier. Now Doug is heading out to Barnes and Noble to make up his Christmas wish list. He's nuts.

Interestingly enough, "Black Friday" isn't the most profitable day for stores during the Christmas season. From an article over at Snopes.com about Black Friday:

The consistent holiday shopping trend is that sales figures spike on the day after Thanksgiving, drop sharply immediately afterwards, then steadily increase throughout December, peaking on the four days comprising the two weekends before Christmas. The result is that Black Friday nearly always ends up ranking below the last Saturday before Christmas.