In the US there is a Thanksgiving tradition known as ‘Black Friday’, which happens the day after Thanksgiving (which always falls on the last Thursday of November).
But Black Friday is not where families come together to relax after the stress of cooking a big meal, it is in fact the day when they choose to venture out at 5am (!) to shop like crazy in the ridiculously priced pre-Christmas sales. Events take place everywhere from superstores to thrift stores and last the weekend, but all the best sales happen first thing on Friday morning.
Naturally I wouldn’t dream of getting up so early for any of the January sales, but as I’ll probably only be here once for this time of year I figured I might as well partake with the rest of the country. In a bid to be clever and out-smart my body clock, I decided to join my cousin (and what seemed like half of Florida) in going to Miromar, one of the largest outlet malls in Florida at midnight.
There were queues from the highway, queues to get into stores, queues to pay and even queues to get back out again! Luckily I was just on the hunt for a few Christmas presents and succeeded in getting most of the things on my list, but my cousin had to queue to get into her favourite store, Juicy Couture, only to find nothing of interest and left empty handed!
One of the things I love about shopping is the thrill of the chase; the rummaging the looking high and low and the satisfaction of walking out the store with my purchase. Last night I practically had to beat off old ladies with their own walking sticks just to get near any of the stores I was interested in*, and I had to put up with the scary, bleary eyed looks of shoppers desperate for a hit of ‘40% off’. Not an experience I intend on repeating but I’m glad I gave it a try. Now, off to bed…