Thanksgiving Festivities

Thanksgiving this year was a different kind of holiday for us. In the last 7 years that Clay and I have known each other, we have gone to Monticello for 6 Thanksgivings and to Morgan Hill for one of them.  This year, Clay's work schedule had him working the day before and the four days after Thanksgiving. We spent the day (and into the night) with some of our Arizona family, the Gronemans. The food was delicious. The company was delightful. The Black Thursday deals were hot. We left with full hearts and bellies.

Zane and Ashlyn got the kid's table all to themselves. They made a royal mess of everything in the general area of their table.

 

Including themselves. I'm pretty sure that's ranch dressing. Yum.

Zane did his own Black Thursday shopping around the house...

While everyone checked out the deals on their phones:

Until the turkey kicked in.

I have never been Black Friday shopping before. Wait... that's a lie. One time, I went Black Friday shopping with Steph in Monticello. There was a flyer in the San Juan Record stating that the first 30 people to come into the crafting and nick-knack store, Unique Creations would get a box of Christmas lights. I think they opened at 8:00 that morning. Steph and showed up around 2:00 in the afternoon. We each got a string of lights. 

Anyhow, I digress. I have definitely never been Black Thursday shopping before. Bri's family is full of super shoppers, so I decided I was in good hands for my first experience.

First we headed to Walmart to get giant TVs.

 We waited in the store, in a line of 16 people. One of them was wearing a turkey hat, was playing music loudly from the stereo in his cart, and I'm pretty sure he was highly intoxicated. But he made the time go by quickly. During the few hours that we waited, we took turns holding places in line and wandering around the store. We may or may not have grabbed "time sensitive" deals when they were left unguarded. Thanks to Bri's family and their handy teamwork, I scored several new releases for $1 apiece, a couple of kids games for $3 each, some ninja turtle pj's for $3, a car charger for my phone for $8 and a few other fun and exciting things.

Bri found some $5 memory foam bath mats that doubled as a great mattress for Ashlyn. Sweet Girl didn't find all the deals as exciting as the rest of us.

We left Walmart around 10:15 and headed to the Outlets at Anthem to check out the deals there.

I didn't find any better deals than can be found any other day at the outlets, but I did find the tallest Christmas tree in America.
According to their website, the tree is 15 feet longer than an NBA basketball court and is approximately the length of two and a half city blocks. It is 27 feet wide. It came almost 750 miles from Northern California on a 75-foot trailer. At least 12 tree saplings will be replanted in the vicinity. Fully adorned with 180 strands of LED lights stretching three miles and more than 6,000 ornaments it weighs 16 tons. The copper start at the top is three feet tall. Now that's a huge tree!  The phone picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. I can't wait to take my family to see it!