Black Friday

In the US, Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving which is the start of the Holiday retail season. Many refer to it as the busiest shopping day of the year, and while it may feel like it, total sales are usually higher on the Saturday before Christmas. Last year, a Walmart employee was trampled to death by a mob of eager shoppers, and two people were shot to death in an argument at a Toys R Us. Even though there were great sales, I usually avoided shopping on Black Friday when I was in the US because I don't like the crowds.

In Sweden, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, nor is there anything special about shopping the following day. This year I decided not to celebrate Thanksgiving either. I really love Thanksgving: both the food and the social aspect of it, but it's too much work to cook all that just for us. I even like the idea of taking a moment to be thankful. I've tried to incorporate thankfulness into my every day life.

Every year I help my daughter go through her toys and decide what she no longer wants. The stuff that's in good condition, is not battery operated, and does not require reading, gets wrapped up and given to the local newspaper's collection for underprivileged kids in Poland and Lithuania. Some of the other stuff is clearly ready for the trash. My problem is I don't have a good solution for the rest of it, and it's beginning to stack up.

This year it turned out that we were actually shopping on Black Friday. The company where my husband works is trying desperately to save money, so they've put restrictions on travel and overtime. Because of late phone meetings twice per week, my husband gets his 40 hours in Monday through Thursday, so for all of November, he's had Fridays off. (In December he can work all week because the holidays will keep the total hours down.) We still don't know if he'll be going to Japan in December or Miami in January. I'm really ready for some sun, so I hope that he'll still get sent to Miami and that I'll be able to tag along.

So anyhow, we did some shopping errands on Friday. I've been thinking of getting a new camera, so I went to the camera shop to compare. Sure, you can read about the features online, but it really comes down to how the thing feels in my hand. Some models are simply too big for my hand and heavy, and if I'm holding the thing for a 10 hour wedding, that makes all the difference. The sales girl was not particularly knowledgeable, but what really struck me was what a pathetic sales person she was. Sales is looked down upon in Sweden, thus not many people make the effort to be good at it. Pretty much the extent of her sales technique was to unlock the cabinet and hand me the cameras that I wanted to try. I quickly concluded that I wanted the Canon 50D which costs over $1000 just for the body. I practically begged the girl to give me any reason why I should buy the camera then or from her, but she just stared at me. I'm not in any rush to buy the camera, so I'll do some comparison shopping.