Christmas Lights, Turkey Day and Black Friday...All in One Update

I haven't posted in a while, and its been a long two weeks. Rather than post 3 different posts, I'll give you the Readers Digest, not-so-condensed version

Christmas Lights
This is our 5th Holiday in our home. We love putting up lights, and discovered the neighbors come to expect it. One year I was buying a new china cabinet and when I was giving the lady at the store our address she got all excited because its the cute house with the candy cane trees. And she knew which decor was new this year vs. last years lights. She must drive by my house a lot. Anyway, as far as Christmas lights go we are always replacing them every year. The first year we used my mom and dad's hand me down icicle lights, and those suckers lasted for 3 Christmas's. Then last year they went caput, so we hot footed it over to Target with a teething 5 month old and purchased all new icicle lights, in multi colors rather than white. We also purchased a few extra net lights (not cheap) and then some red to double up on our candy cane trees. The house looked rather lovely and we really enjoyed the lights. We even got compliments from the Limo driver that took us out for my in-laws 40th wedding anniversary. He said it made it much easier to find our house since it was lit up like the house in Christmas Vacation.
So this year, I didn't plan ahead very well and volunteered my home for the work Holiday Party, not realizing we would be out of town for the 2 weekend prior to the party. And I refuse to let J up on a ladder if I'm not home, should he fall and no one is there to throw their hands up in the air and call 911. So the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we are scrambling at 3pm, in the cold, to get our lights up. So, 75% of our lights were out and not fixable. 1 strand of the icicles was fine, the 2nd strand was out in 3 places and I managed to fix one, but not the other 2. And those are a lost cause. Then we started checking the net lights. Out of 6 sets, 1 set was fully functioning, the rest were out in various places. Again, if you've ever messed with multi colored net lights, you understand its nearly impossible to tell where the light is burned out. And then out of the 15 strands of red and whites that we use for our porch columns and the candy cane trees, 3 were fully functioning. I probably could have fixed them, but they are so inexpensive for the 100 strands that we decided to buy new again, and try to fix the rest later. Or sell them. Craigs List is awesome! Again, we were in a time crunch to get them done. So we headed over to Target and Walmart (shudder) and figured out Target had the best lights and the best prices, and we decided on the fly to change the color scheme from multi-colored to blue and white. So we bought all new lights (except for the nets, too expensive, we'll skip them this year and get them on clearance after Christmas) and they are up. Only half are on though, because with out the nets to connect the porch to the trees, we have an extension cord issue. We also invested in twinkle lights for the porch and they are lovely. It snowed here over the weekend, so if it doesn't melt today, we'll take pictures to post.
So yes I was upset that every year we buy new lights, and every year we have to buy more. But we've decided to standardize on Phillips Lights, and hopefully we can get a couple more years out of them.

Turkey Day Fun
This year was Thanksgiving at the Watson's in St. Louis. We were going back and forth on if we wanted to leave Tuesday night when I got off work, or Wednesday morning. We didn't want to drive in the dark, so we opted for Wed morning, but set the strict schedule of being out the door and on I-70 by 9am. We did not want to get stuck in StL rush hour traffic, its worse than anywhere else I've ever been...even LA. Then the next decision dilemma was which car to take. We've always been a one car, one SUV family. Then J got his new photography job, and needed a bigger vehicle so now we are a one mini-van, one SUV family. The van has way more room and we were hauling my sisters very large Christmas gift with us, and decided to take it. Until Wed morning when J realized the van doesn't have a CD player, and we could just use the iPod but he made L a bunch of new CD's and wanted the CD player. So fine, lets take my SUV. We get it all loaded, cats situated, front door locked, L in her car seat, ready to go....and.....it WONT START! The Pacifica is only 4 years old. Never given us any trouble (well only the one time when we got stranded in Oklahoma, but only for 24 hours). I called our insurance company to get the roadside assistance I play $1 extra for each month...side bar...when we were renewing our insurance a few years back USAA started their roadside assistance deal, $1 per vehicle per month. Covers tows, lock outs, gas, tires etc...this little voice in the back of my head kept reminding me what my dad and husband always say "never pay for that kind of service, you'll never us it, like extended warranties, there is no need". I shoved that voice aside and like the girly girl I am, said lets do it. And thank god! We've called them no less than 6 times, its fantastic, and well worth the $1. J even admits it now, and we'll always carry it on our cars, since we don't buy brand new anymore.
Anyways back to the dead car. While I was calling the insurance company J was moving L and all our stuff to the van. He was also trying to charge the battery with his jumper box, but nothing was working. USAA said it would be at least an hour to wait for the tow to the dealer, and when I asked if we had to be there, if they could just take the car for us, the agent asked "well what will you do with the keys"? Well lady, the car wont start, so its not like anyone is going to drive off with it, so I'll just leave them in the ignition. Well she didn't like that so much, so we said nevermind, we'll wait until we get back on Monday. No biggie. By then everything was moved to the van and J proclaims, "wow, we've got a lot more room here", no kidding Sherlock** just teasing you honey, but we bought the van because its bigger than the Pacifica, remember ** So it was a very comfortable ride in the van, and we only missed the CD player a little bit. We got on the road by 10am but still got stuck in the StL rush hour traffic, but made it home (my parents house, but still my home) right before it got dark. And L was a wonderful traveler. She was a doll at Cracker Barrel and stuffed herself full of corn bread muffins.

The rest of the weekend was much better than that first hour. We did a big meal with my parents, grandparents, aunts,sister and future brother in law. L immediately started loving on everyone, not acting all shy like usual. My mom and I did the Black Friday thing (more about that later), got to see the outdoor site where my sisters wedding will be, went to a Holiday Party at my future B-i-L's parents, and went wedding dress shopping with my sister (her dress is so lovely, I didn't cry, but my mom and sister did, I was too busy chasing after L). We also did a mini-Christmas with my Aunt's and Grandparents because we'll be staying in KC for Christmas this year, and they won't be traveling this way. My parents will be coming the day after Christmas.

The ride home wasn't too bad, loads of traffic, couple of accidents, breakdowns etc...and it snowed most of the way back, but didn't stick. L was so happy to be home so kept clapping and cheering and giggling and chasing the cats. She finally crashed at 9pm, and then me an hour later. The house is a mess, but J is ambitious and thinks he can clean it up before I get home.

The Pacifica is currently at the dealership, keeping my fingers crossed its something covered by the warranty (yes I said warranty, I was 5 months pregnant when we bought the Pacifica, and I insisted on the extended warranty, despite J's protests, must have been the hormones and the fact that my previous car was a used BMW and no warranty= $1,000 repairs each time it broke down, which was quite often. Superior car my foot).

Black Friday Mayhem
When I was younger and we were living in Virginia we always went to the convention center for the Black Friday craft fair. It was huge and I remember always loving everything I saw. We don't have anything like that here, so I've started the Black Friday-crack of dawn-shopping tradition. I first started it three years ago when I was pregnant with L, and wanted to get everything done early. I didn't do the early morning shopping though. I went with a friend after all the crazies when home. We still got great deals and all my shopping done that day. Then last year mom and I decided to go at 4am to JCP and then continue to Target, Kohl's and then the Mall. We needed to go early because J had to work at 10am and we didn't want to drag L with us, and we weren't sure how long my dad could stay home with her without having to change a diaper. It went well, JCP wasn't overly crowded although we saw a women bite it on the ice in the parking lot, but she got up and kept going. We got to Target right as they opened, and not too bad either. Got some great deals. Kohl's was a little more crowded, line was forever long, but we were done and home by noon. Christmas shopping done.
This year J and I have been Christmas shopping since October, but we did have a few more things to get, and I asked mom if she wanted to go to Target with me at 6am. She agreed. Then on Thanksgiving we were going through all the ads and I remember my friend S telling me that Wally World (shudder) was going to have a Kitchen Aid 4.5 qt Classic Mixer for $130. My dream mixer, for under $150. I told my mom that's what I wanted for Christmas and she agreed. So we decided to hit up Walmart (shudder) at 5am. Un-beknowst to us, all of Jefferson County decided to converge on the Festus Walmart at the exact same time. I have never in my life seen that many people in one spot. You couldn't move. They had to be breaking firecodes. Not sure if all Walmarts (shudder) were like that, but hearing about that poor man in NY that was trampled leads me to believe they were. No deal is worth being that scared. I grabbed the last mixer off the shelf and we went to electronics to check out. You couldn't even tell where all the lines started or stopped. Well the mixer rang up the wrong price, of course. Then the manager comes over and it turns out, that while its the EXACT SAME MIXER, Kitchen Aid provided Walmart (shudder) with a different SKU's mixer to sell on Friday, and they couldn't give me the SAME EXACT MIXER for that price because of the 1 letter off the SKU was. Needless to say I was livid, and will no longer shop at Walmart (shudder). I'm considering angry letters to both the Kitchen Aid people and Walmart. Now I know it wasn't Walmart's (shudder) fault they were that crowded, its the economy and the crazy shoppers looking for the best bargain, but seriously any other day that manager would have glady discounted the mixer. While all that was going on a friend of my mom's shows up with her brand new baby (commenting about how she is scared someone might steal her, or a fire would break out and we're all trapped, but she's buying that new TV anyways) and mentions she got a KitchenAid mixer for cheaper at Kohl's and we should go there. So we left Walmart (shudder) empty handed and head to Target.
God Bless Target and the Red Bulls Eye. It was so much calmer over there. Sure there were lots of people and long lines, but everything was organized, the employees were polite and all over the place, and the DVD's were cheaper! We got most of the stuff we needed, checked out the mixers, still the same full price, and headed over to Kohl's. I was so pleased with Target, I made sure to collect the few stray carts around our car and put them in the cart buggy for the nice employees in the red polos. Did I say how much I love Target? I might write them a letter telling them how fabulous they were.
When we got to Kohl's I was a little worried, they had been open for 5 hours already and I was afraid the place would be a mess. Other than not having any carts it wasn't too bad. They had 4 different KitchenAid mixers on sale. And I ended up getting the Heavy Duty mixer (normally $379, not $200 like the other one) , for $10 less than the one at Walmart (shudder) when you count the rebate and the $40 Kohl's cash my mom earned. So good deal, go Kohls! Had I had an extra $100 I might have opted for the Artisan mixer in red, but truthfully, I may not always have a red kitchen and I can get the accessories later for the Heavy Duty. Besides that the HD one can make 6lbs of mashed taters!

So thanks Lisa for the heads up, and if anyone needs a great deal on a KitchenAid mixer, head to Kohl's. And Thanks Mom! For enduring an Black Friday nightmare and getting me my dream mixer!