My family isn’t big on shopping and my mom’s great at getting deals unrelated to the craze of this time of year. Growing up, we never did Black Friday (who wants to wake up that early?) and we enjoyed a much more chill holiday weekend. However, in recent years with retailers opening Thanksgiving night, it’s become something that I actually considered doing. Lining up at 5 pm at night is far easier than crawling up at 2 in the morning to get in line by 3. This year, Panda and I decided the one item we’d look for is a TV. We had never really gotten a TV since moving to the condo, so we had this giant living room area and no screen to match. What we’ve had is a 24″ that came free with the couch set. Not nearly the size you need when you’re sitting a good 10 feet away.

This morning, the ads came and we confirmed what we wanted: a 48″ Westinghouse at Target. With doors opening at 6, we decided to get into line around 5.

It got pretty cold in line, but it definitely could have been worse.

I’m not sure Americans know what crackers are, but the Brits certainly would!

Snagged that and went to check out!

Not what we wanted to see upon turning it on.

Of course they were out of stock when we went to exchange it, but we were able to get the 50″ instead.

Now that’s more like it… the old TV was sooo small.

It turned out to be quite the adventure and required another trip to Target. At first, the manager seemed reluctant to give us an exchange for a similar product without charging us the difference (which sort of defeats the purpose of the Black Friday deal, don’t you think?). Luckily, when we found the same brand with a slightly larger screen, she was willing to let the extra $100 price difference slide and gave us an even exchange. At least we got an extra 2 inches for all that hassle!