Thanksgiving for the Win

Wow. The long Thanksgiving weekend could not have been any more fantastic for me, and I hope that you are able to say the same!

After (accidentally) waking me up at the crack of dawn (literally) on Thursday, the hubs went out to get the newspapers for me so I could sleep a little more and wake up to a fresh stack of Black Friday ads - #whataguy. I brought them with to South Bend for Thanksgiving dinner and chatted it up with one of Dan's cousins most of the afternoon while going through everything and making my list. Now I know a lot of people had major issues with stores opening so early this year, and truth be told I was kinda bummed myself simply because shopping in the middle of the night with Dan and my sister while we blast Christmas music and wait for McDonald's breakfast to start is one of my favorite yearly traditions. I figure if other people don't want to shop on Thanksgiving/Black Friday then they don't have to... but earlier hours or not, I absolutely love it, and this year was no exception. We actually started a bit earlier than we originally planned by stopping by Best Buy in South Bend to try and get the hubs a doorbuster laptop for work. I was SHOCKED at how calm, orderly and nice the people were out there! We were in and out in no time, got exactly what we needed, didn't wait in ridiculous lines and most importantly - didn't practically get trampled heading into the store. Chicago area Best Buy's could really learn something from their counterparts in Indiana if you ask me.

When we got back to Chicago we picked up my sister, mom and aunt, bundled up and headed to Target at 8pm and then the outlet mall at 9. Outside of an obnoxious and overly peppy Kate Spade Outlet employee, the mall was a success and we were home around 1am for bed. Manda and I got in a power nap and headed back out the door a little after 5am starting with Sephora's $10 doorbusters (worth it EVERY year). After 2 malls and breakfast Dan met us out for some manly stores and Old Navy (worst line of the whole day, as usual). By 1pm I was about 97% DONE with all of my Christmas shopping, and I thought the day couldn't get any better until we got to Home Depot and I spied an adorable little 5ft REAL Christmas tree for a whopping $17... and then Dan said "yeah go ahead, let's try it" AND I GOT MY FIRST REAL CHRISTMAS TREE in about a decade!!! I was genuinely glowing and smiling so much that the guy who trimmed it up for me congratulated me on my tree (and probably thought I was crazy, but I'm ok with that). It's the cutest little thing you ever did see and I cannot wait to put lights on it tonight so we can hang up our favorite ornaments!

Friday night proved to be just as exciting as the rest of the day since I had dinner plans with a college friend I haven't seen in ages. He showed up with my favorite Starbucks drink in hand and we spent the next 3 hours storytelling, reminiscing and eating burgers until Dan and some of our friends showed up and the fun continued well into the night. It honestly could not have been a better evening.

After all of that I'm sure it's no surprise that I slept most of Saturday away, but thankfully I managed to get myself out of bed in time to spend the evening with our nieces and FIL. Sunday included some much overdue house cleaning, a stager coming by for a consultation thanks to our realtors and grocery shopping that resulted in us stocking up our deep freezer with enough meat for half the winter.

Needless to say, I am exhausted this morning even thinking about heading to work, but looking forward to the next few weeks leading up to Christmas and New Years! Happy Monday all.