Reinventing Black Friday

I've been talking down Black Friday this holiday season and what a crazy time it has turned out to be. I said I wasn't going to participate this year. And I didn't. Well, I didn't go to WalMart or Toys R Us, or ShopKo or any of those big box stores with their huge and insane sales. I wanted to spend my shopping hours....shopping...not standing in lines.

So my sister and I went to the outlets in Park City. Granted, we weren't able to buy electronics or many other things that one might buy for Christmas, but we sure got some good deals on clothing, jewelry, shoes, coats and everything else you can buy at the outlets!

So to recap our morning in a nutshell, we hit a few of the teenage stores because my sister's 16 year old daughter and her friend were with us. We went to Rue 21 where there were some great deals and then to Aeropostale. Aeropostale was a HUGE letdown and I actually left the store in disgust and protest. Evidently they re-tagged EVERY single thing in their store to twice the normal price and then said everything in the store was 50% off. HOW LAME ARE YOU AEROPOSTALE?

We only know this because my sister and her daughter were in that same store only two weeks ago and bought several items that are still being sold. All of the things they bought were now tagged at twice what they paid for them. I just think that is so lame and I really hesitate to even shop there anymore if that's their idea of good commerce.

The best deal of the day was definitely at Columbia. You received 20% off everything you bought and most of the store was already 30%-50% off. That meant that a lot of what I bought was 70% off! I bought lunch boxes, back packs, coats for the kids for next year, and lots of jackets and sweatshirt type things - gifts! It was awesome! I bought a ton of stuff there and only spent $100.

I also spent a lot of time at The Children's Place (lots of $2.99 shirts, skirts, pants) and Gap Kids where I bought a lot of "necessary" clothing - not many gifts. But they had really good sales too! I think the best kids' clothing sale that I hit was at Carter's though. Except for $9 fleece pajamas (which can be purchased on a regular basis at Costco), the other deals there were excellent!

We got up there at 5:30 AM and there were people there but no more than a regular Saturday would find. By 11:00 though it was getting crowded so it was definitely worthwhile to go early. Several stores had better sales (like Columbia) that ended at 8, 9 or 10 AM so it was nice to take advantage of those sales.

All in all, I got quite a bit of Christmas shopping done but it was a shopping trip more dedicated to filling out our wardrobes and getting ahead of growing kids. The beautiful Columbia coat I bought for Bugs was worth the trip alone. I will absolutely do the outlets again. Less stress, less people, awesome deals and a very fun start to the holidays.