I Suck At Black Friday

The day after Thanksgiving, known by many as Black Friday as it marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, was an interesting day. Now I suck at Black Friday.

I have always thought about partaking in the madness of Black Friday by waking up early and scrambling for a retail bargain. More often than naught, however, my laziness gets the better of me and I generally choose to sleep in on the day after Thanksgiving. Friday was no different.

So instead of waking up in the wee hours of night to stand in line at some retail store, I decided to sleep in. When I woke up, Karen and I actually put up our Christmas tree. Yes, we respected the turkey and waited for the day after Thanksgiving to put up the tree.

With our house now decorated for Christmas, Karen and I had dinner with my friends (Cass and Ellen). Every year, Cass and Ellen invite a bunch of friends over on the day after Thanksgiving to eat the leftovers from Thanksgiving. In my opinion, it's a great annual tradition with friends.

The annual tradition reminded me of the time when, during my high school years, a bunch of my friends celebrated Thanksgiving at my friend's (Garv) place. At least, I think it was for Thanksgiving. There were so many of us crammed in around the dinner table. It was comical. Just being with so many friends was a blast.

Plus, my friend's (Anna) boyfriend at the time made a surprise visit. Anna's boyfriend looked like he was 40 years old, which was light years for us high school kids. Truth be told, Anna's boyfriend was this little scrawny Asian guy... with this mustache. It was an awful mustache. (Of course, I may be jealous because I can't grow a mustache.) Regardless, Anna's boyfriend was also a bit controlling. He liked to keep tabs on Anna. And it so happened that he found out Anna was at Garv's.

Without getting into the nitty gritty details, Anna's boyfriend wanted Anna to leave the party. Obviously, none of us wanted Anna to go spend her time with her 40 year old, hairy lipped boyfriend. The result: my friend (Greg) who had the pleasure of answering the door when Anna's boyfriend arrived, cowered in the corner with fear when her boyfriend wanted to pick a fight. (Again, Anna's boyfriend was a twerp.)

Like I said... comical. Anna ended up leaving the party. We were young. But I look back at the time and remember how much fun it was to hang out with everyone.

Anyway, I associate Cass and Ellen's after Thanksgiving dinner with that feeling of hanging out with friends and it's something I look forward to since they started the tradition. And for anyone curious, yes... this is the same tradition where I had my choking incident involving steak.

Attending the festivities this year in addition to Karen, Cass, Ellen, and myself were my friends (Marc, Kelley, Meredith, Doug, Aimee and her daughter Amaya) and my BFF (Kerry). It was a fun.

Also for this year, Cass decided to make a feel rules for the annual tradition. The rules were as follows:

1. Everyone must wear sweatpants, yoga pants, or pajamas.


2. Everyone must pick out a shot glass whether they consume alcohol or not.


3. The food will be served on the plates they came in.


4. And the lazy susan at the dinner table can only rotate clockwise.

There may have been more rules, but those are the ones that I remember. In my own twisted thinking, I thought it would be cool to have an annual tradition to see what I could choke on. Needless to say, Karen did not like that idea.

Anyway, dinner was great. I particularly enjoyed hanging out with everyone and just having fun. We eventually ended up playing a game that Cass and Ellen had gotten, called "The Game of Things". Oh yes, for anyone curious, Cass and Ellen... and Aimee... had successful Black Friday shopping excursions.

"The Game of Things" was a riot. Without getting into too many details, the game regressed into sharting and Ryan Reynolds... and sometimes both.

All in all, the day after Thanksgiving was a blast.