In the spirit of giving, we’re giving away a $5 bonus to the best 5 comments! So leave your story in the comment box below. (Contest extended until Friday December 19th)
The Holidays are coming. It’s the time of year in which we see different commercials for products we wouldn’t normally see during the year (does anyone actually own a Chia Pet?), the time of year that we see three times the amount of traffic on any given day, and the time of year where parents literally step on each other in order to buy their children the “must have” presents of that particular year.
Blame it on manufacturers that don’t produce the supply to keep up with demand, parenting attitudes, or simply just the aspect of sporting competition; one thing is apparent — we’ve become animals! I cannot help but to cringe after I read that during this year’s “Black Friday” a worker at a Wal-Mart was trampled to death by a mob stampeding into the store.
I’ve tried to think back and remember if things have always been this way. Personally, I always made out like a bandit whenever Santa came to visit our household, but I don’t recall hearing any stories of my parents queueing in line for hours, or mad rushes to display stands in a barbaric free for all. The only thing that comes to mind was the madness that was induced when every child had to have one of the “so ugly they’re cute” dolls: the Cabbage Patch Kids.
Now as a part time Santa for my children, I can slightly understand the drive behind wanting to get that one gift that will make them proclaim, “This is the best Christmas ever!”. My kids are getting to the age where run of the mill toys and games won’t whet their appetites for what makes a great Christmas. This year, they have been asking Santa for a Nintendo Wii, and not wanting to disappoint; I feel the need to deliver.
Therein lies the problem. It seems that again, the demand is outweighing the supply and stores are being given limited quantities. Last Friday, I was at the mall at 6am to stand in line in front of a store that was getting a shipment of Wii’s. Not realizing that the mall actually opened at 7:30, I froze waiting outside the doors, repeating the mantra “I love my kids…” to myself over and over. Ultimately my perseverance paid off and I was the first one in line to buy a Wii. The store, having only received 9 units, had to inform a line of 25 people who had been waiting, to queue again the following Friday. I couldn’t help but have a feeling of accomplishment, and in my mind I was sticking my tongue out and humming “nyah nyah” to the deflated consumers. Animals indeed.
Let me ask you: I’m sure my story pales in comparison to the stories of others, but this was my first experience in any type of holiday rush for a present. I would love to hear some of your stories and what you’ve done to track down that one elusive gift. Have you seen the worst in people during the shopping season? Are there any examples that you can share where someone had put others before themselves in the true spirit of the holidays?
In the spirit of giving, we’re giving away a $5 bonus to the best 5 comments! So leave your story in the comment box below. (Extended until Friday December 19th)
1riley624 on Dec 12, 2008 at 1:42 pm:
Well, lol. This probably doesn’t make one of the best stories, but I get a chuckle out of it everytime I think about it, this time of year. Many years ago when my girls were younger, the newest toy to have was a *furby*. Well Oh my lord they all had to have one lol. so… I decided to go out on black friday and wait in a 5 mile line at 4:30 in the dang morning with a extra large dunkin donuts coffee, and a body that was froze solid from standing in that line. Well…when it was time to go inside the local walmart, I became a wild woman running with the rest of the crazy people into the store, ( of course I would be the one to trip and go flying) but that didn’t stop my quest to get 3 furby’s for my girls. Needless to say… I finally reached the area where they were holding the furby’s hostage and manage to squeeze in and grab 3 before I was trampled on. Happy Holidays to all my Vega friends and remember…. Tis the Season…lol
2screamb on Dec 13, 2008 at 11:49 am:
Im a very experienced Black Friday Christmas all from the warmth and convience of my on home! On gottadeal.com theirs a special black friday part thats starts showing ads in October. Most off line stores (pennys,target,walmart sears) let you order blk fri. items on thanksgiving on line with either free ship to store or just free shipping!
For those still procrastanating Thursday Dec.18 Is Free shipping day with all orders guaranteed before xmas. At this time there are at least 40 reg stores and online stores listed! Merry Shopping!
3netbaby21 on Dec 13, 2008 at 5:48 pm:
well my story is a little more about wat we did for christmas rather than the actual shopping.i went on a toys for tots motorcycle run, had the whole day planned.got the toys on sale so we were able to get more expensive ones than we needed(they request at least a $10 new unwrapped toy per person) went and got doughnuts even bought a coffee maker lol got the bikes all shined up ready to go it was a beautiful sunday morning.we get half way there and the bikes belt broke ugh! 4 bikers and no one had a knife to cut it off.someone drove by when they seen us and got us a knife .there was just enough of the belt left to get the bike home.another friend called let us borrow a bike and off we went.there were 981 bikes there when we got there im doing the rest of my shopping online this year lol
4sunshinesz on Dec 14, 2008 at 2:04 am:
Here is my story. I did go shopping on black friday. I took my step daughter( that was something getting her up at 4 in the morning lol). We headed on out to most popular place, Walmart. I knew I should of turned around right when I seen the parking lot. I was saying to myself oh please let the pj pants and my laptop be there. Well When we walked thru the door I didnt know where to start. My daughter kept saying we are crazy lets just go home. I told her no we come this far lets just join all the other shoppers. The first place we went was to electronics and guess what, no laptop. They didnt even get them in for the sale. I was not a happy camper lol, at this point my daughter suggestion was looking real good by now. So we proceeded to where the pj pants were. Of course not the ones that I wanted. Was just not looking like a good day for me. So I was looking for some baby toys and I did have luck with that. I ended up going back and getting super mario brother pj pants lolol. Two sizes to big. When I wear them I call them my addictive jammies lol. I promised myself that was the last time i go to a black friday sale ever. I was sweating by the time I got out of walmart from all the people. This was my 5th year going and this year was the busiet year yet. It was very crazy for me and I hope everyone likes my story. Merry Xmas to all of my new Vega buddies….. So Glad to of found this site. xoxoxoxoxoxox
5catbustsazz on Dec 14, 2008 at 9:30 am:
Well, I can remember when me and my sister and Mom would all go out on the day after Thanksgiving shopping. My mom would use me and my sister in her quest for whatever she was getting at the time. I dont recall it being as crazy as it is nowadays though. The ONE and only time I almost got into a throwdown was over gifts for my daughter when she was younger. This was back when New Kids on the Block dolls were a MUST have for any young girl under the age of 18, lol (and maybe for some over that ..ppssttt, CM LISA!) There were dolls of every single one of the dudes, but of course ONE doll had to be hard to find and it was Donnie. I went to 4 different stores in such of the illusive Donnie. I finally traveled 146 miles to Dallas TX to a store…went straight to the toy isle and low and behold there set Donnie in all his glory, on the shelf….ONE Donnie Doll…I spied him clear down the isle at the other end…I revved up my buggy and just as I was ALmost to him, I see this one lady pick it up and go..’Is this what everybody is so crazy about?’ I watched in horror as she put it in her buggy…nearly in tears. Another woman beside her said…’why are you getting that, who you gonna give it to?’ So I said, I will give you 50 bucks right now to hand the doll over to me…I got the doll!!! Mission accomplished!! woohoooo!! Come Christmas morning. it was worth every penny I spent to see the look on my daughters face that one time…cause I vowed I would NEVER do that again, and I havent, lol! And by the way…she still has the dolls.
6catbustsazz on Dec 14, 2008 at 9:34 am:
OH, and I KNOW its ‘elusive’ but was doing a play on words…cause it was making me ILL trying to find that dang doll… and it was ALMOST a throwdown…haha!
7Mermaidcutie on Dec 15, 2008 at 3:42 am:
I work in retail so on day after Thanksgiving, I had to open the store at 7:00am.
I went to bed early cause I had to be up at 5:00am ugh, there goes my beauty sleep. The alarm went off and I got out of bed half awake opened my door and low and behold I didn’t see my cat. You can all guess what happened, I tripped over the cat hit my left foot on the edge of the door and fell flat on my belly. My husband did not even hear me scream in pain, he was snoring pretty loud.
I had to slowly get up on my own then off to shower quickly. I had to limp to my car. When I got to work, the stupid electric door going into the store didn’t work. I kept turning the key up, it kept getting stuck halfway. Next thing you know the security alarm went off man was it loud. I had a few shoppers waiting to go in. Called mall security to help, instead of turning the key up, they turned it down so the whole electric door fell like an according. It took the professional door n lockman to fix it for us. We ended up opening our store 2 1/2 hrs late. In the midst of taking out the merchandise in a hurry I tripped over the chair fortunately I didn’t fall except all the watches went flying off the display board lol. By the time I let the customers in, my foot was black and blue and swollen.
But all in all we had good sales but out of that it cost us $750 to fix the door.
Happy Holidays everyone !!!
8Joel on Dec 15, 2008 at 4:42 am:
The Furbies! I had completely forgotten about those things.
I’ve been finding the trend is leaning towards doing all shopping online. It only makes sense. We’re living in a digital world, it’s not going to be too long before my children email their wish list over and I’m ordering everything to be delivered.
These are GREAT stories, I’ve enjoyed reading this thread. I hope we get some more!
9ladysparrow on Dec 16, 2008 at 8:00 pm:
every year im out at 3 am with my mom and sister. and every year i see at least one mom draggin her kid around thestore yelling no they cant have that toy til they unwrap it on xmas. why ruin a kids xmas ? i never take mine so they are always suprised. i love it when their eyes light up when they get just what they wanted.! Hope u all get just what u wanted too! merry xmas all!!!
10prettydancer on Dec 17, 2008 at 10:34 am:
i remember when my boys were lil and i being a single mom had no money so i went to the a&p grocery store and bought my oldest one a truck and my baby a jacket and thier aunt went to the woods and cut down a tree and made her own decorations but the point to this story is that its not always about giving but the season to spend with the ones that close to you
11Jocelyn L Martel on Dec 19, 2008 at 1:23 am:
i went to ebay to order a toy fro my daughter she wanted a toy rabbit that moves well when i recieved it it was the pearl reabbit vibrator which did not say it was for intamacy how embarred i was
12turkeygoose on Dec 19, 2008 at 11:41 pm:
My story starts out on that 1 gift from Santa in the 60s that every girl wanted at the time was a pair of GO GO BOOTS!!!Most of my friends had them already but I didnt I wished every nite for them but wasnt getting my hopes uptoo much my Dad left us me and my 2older brothers My Mom had to work 3 jobs but it still wasnt enough money to pay all the bills She walked to work we had no car My brothers did odd jobs what they could find to help out We lived in a very small town my heart goes out to my Mom I am very proud of her she always thought and got for us kids before herself She always was doing things for other people all the time she loved to sew she was taught by her grandmother hand stich not by machine One year for the school year i had 22 dresses she made me All my Barbie dolls clothes were made by mom too most beutiful wedding dress i have every seen im not kidding all the clothes fit in a small suitcase as My mom comes from old family tradition you do with what you have and that is family 1st always a smile on her face happy go lucky Mom is 85 years young doesnt look older than 70 still sews but it hand sewn guilts I am blessed to have a mom like her she is my best friend so my wish tonite is that she has many more healthy years ahead of her because we still have places to go and things to see OHHH by the way Santa did get me a pair of GO GO BOOTS
13Joel on Dec 19, 2008 at 11:54 pm:
Thanks for that, prettydancer. Sometimes in the rush of the Holidays it's easy to lose track of what it's really all about, which nail you've hit directly on the head with your comment.
14mazveg on Dec 20, 2008 at 5:43 am:
why? the shops are only closed 1 day people panic for no reason so what if the thing they want to buy is not in stock, if people didnt expect too much things out of life the world would be a lot better place
15Bethie on Dec 22, 2008 at 2:14 pm:
Thank you all for taking time out to share your Christmas memories with us!
Although there were lots of great entries and winners were hard to choose, we narrowed it down to five!
WTG! Riley624, Catbustsazz, Prettydancer, Turkeygoose, Sunshinesz
Congrats all winners and Happy Holidays!
Beth
16riley624 on Dec 22, 2008 at 11:26 pm:
Thank yoy Bethicaaaaaaaaaa..Happy Holidays hun to you and your family….
Riley624
17elfinmagic on Dec 29, 2008 at 9:07 pm:
I know this story is Late but I just thought I would share with everyone. When my son was about 4 yrs old he seemed to extra naughty on this day, but I still needed to go and do some shopping and and I was meeting up with some friends. So while we were waiting I was explaining to my son that he needed to be good cause santa was watching him. so we are sitting on bench awaiting for my friends and he said to me that Jesus watches us to mom. right? I told him yes. then he looked at me with a puzzled face and said who is the other person who watches us, mom? well at this point I had no idea. Then he looked like a light bulb went off, and said I remember mom “Its George Bush” So Santa, Jesus and George Bush together
18elfinmagic on Dec 29, 2008 at 11:07 pm:
I know this story is Late but I just thought I would share with everyone. When my son was about 4 yrs old he seemed to extra naughty on this day, but I still needed to go and do some shopping and and I was meeting up with some friends. So while we were waiting I was explaining to my son that he needed to be good cause santa was watching him. so we are sitting on bench awaiting for my friends and he said to me that Jesus watches us to mom. right? I told him yes. then he looked at me with a puzzled face and said who is the other person who watches us, mom? well at this point I had no idea. Then he looked like a light bulb went off, and said I remember mom “Its George Bush” So Santa, Jesus and George Bush together
19elfinmagic on Dec 30, 2008 at 3:07 am:
I know this story is Late but I just thought I would share with everyone. When my son was about 4 yrs old he seemed to extra naughty on this day, but I still needed to go and do some shopping and and I was meeting up with some friends. So while we were waiting I was explaining to my son that he needed to be good cause santa was watching him. so we are sitting on bench awaiting for my friends and he said to me that Jesus watches us to mom. right? I told him yes. then he looked at me with a puzzled face and said who is the other person who watches us, mom? well at this point I had no idea. Then he looked like a light bulb went off, and said I remember mom “Its George Bush” So Santa, Jesus and George Bush together