"Really?", I asked. I thought, how does she know, did she count it down already? Yes, in fact, she had!
Oh no! That knot settled into my stomach. The one that you get when you know you have a ton of things to do and very little time in which to do them. My day was going wonderfully until the clerk said that. She was chipper about it, too chipper in my opinion. I, on the other hand, was not as amused. 49 days?! Just 49 more days? You mean in the next 49 days, besides working, doing my volunteer work, running kids to and fro, and my other daily activities, I have to shop for everyone on my list, wrap all those presents, bake cookies, host Thanksgiving for family, decorate the house, and oh - fit in a 13th birthday party for my oldest daughter. As I started to hyperventilate, the wickedly cheery clerk handed me my receipt and told me to have a nice day. Well not anymore, thank you!
Every year the holidays seem to sneak up on me. One day it's summer and we are swimming and having campfires, the next it's Halloween. I barely recover from that holiday and all of a sudden Christmas comes barreling toward me like a big freight train.
Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas. It's the preparation for it I could do without.
Let's look at the shopping. If I start too early by buying a few things here and there in the summer and accrue them until the big day, I forget where I stashed the presents to keep them from the snooping eyes of my three little spies. Sad, but true. If I start too late, then I face the busy stores, packed parking lots, long lines, and "Black Friday". Now that's a day I will never understand. It seems to be known nation-wide: "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving when department stores open early promising one-time-only, super-special bargains that people trample each other to get to.
Black Friday was an annual tradition when I was a kid. Every year my mother would get up and go shopping on this unofficial holiday to get those sales. (She still does.) So, when I grew up, I followed the tradition and did the same thing; for awhile. It used to be a little fun, kind of like a scavenger hunt or looking for buried treasure, finding those great deals. The fun would start by stalking people coming out of the stores to follow them to their parking space since all the lots were full, continue with snaking my way through the aisles and stealthily grabbing that last item on the shelf, pausing for brief nourishment breaks at the food courts, and ending when I collapsed on the couch at home with all my packages at days end. Of course, that was when I didn't have kids to take with me and before the insanity started in the retail world.
I don't know when it started or who started it, but all of a sudden, Black Friday took an ominous turn. Stores didn't open at 8 a.m. anymore and offer their sale prices all day. No, they moved it back to 6 a.m. And to make matters worse, they offered early-bird specials. So if you wanted the great sale prices, you had to arrive at the store during a few precious hours or you'd miss out. Six in the morning?! I am not a morning person and now if I want to save 50% off that "Tickle Me Elmo" I have to trudge out of my cozy house, bed-headed and bleary-eyed to get to the store at six? No, it's even worse. As I learned, if I wanted to actually get into the store when they first opened the doors, I had to arrive at least an hour early to stand in the line from the store that was already two blocks long. Then, by the time I finally made it into the store, everything was gone, the shelves empty, like a pack of hyenas had just gutted the store and I was there to pick at the left-overs. The next year, feeling wiser and more prepared, I showed up at one store to get in said line at oh-dark-thirty only to get into the store and then find myself being shoved and stepped-on at every turn. Boxes were dropping on heads from high shelves, people were trampling each other to get to the electronics department, and I fleeing for safety, ran out of the store empty-handed, but feeling lucky to have made it out alive. I don't know where everyone's Christmas spirit goes on Black Friday, but holly-jolly gets thrown overboard and it's every man, woman or child for themselves. 
The following year, the stores made it easy on me. They opened even earlier. Now, there is only so far I will go to save a few dollars; and getting up in the wee hours of the morning to stand in the freezing cold temperatures to deal with rude mobs of people is where I draw the line. When the first store decided that one year they were going to open at 6 a.m., their competition decided the next year that they would open at five. And the year after that, other stores decided to get a jump on their competition by opening at four!
Why? Why, oh why do they want us all there at the same time? Why must we arrive at such an unholy hour to get a special price? Why do I have to pay more for my items if I show up one minute past the early-bird time? Did the items suddenly become more valuable? Is it that they want to see how many people it actually takes to fill a Wal-Mart to capacity? Is the government running some secret psychological tests on the effects that overcrowding, hot stores, and long lines have on people's personalities? I'll probably never know. But I do know that I will no longer be a participant. Now, while everyone else is out standing in line freezing their noses off waiting for the stores to open, I am tucked snug in my bed, happily sleeping. While everyone else is waiting in long lines to purchase their goodies, I am on the internet buying mine... with the computer I nabbed at that last early-bird sale.
