Holiday Shopping: Chaos and Glory (Part 1)

When I was a young newlywed, the women in my husband’s family convinced me to attempt a holiday shopping trip on Black Friday.* Being young and naïve, and having been raised by a woman who had worked way more than her share of retail holiday madness sales, this was not something I had ever done, nor had I desire to try. 

But I was new in the family, and it felt like an effort I needed to make, so I woke up in the middle of the night and bundled myself to stand in line in sub-zero temperatures. All in the name of socks (because, apparently, starting at the Fred Meyer 50% off sock sale was part of the tradition).

I will admit that first year, with the socks, I really didn’t see the point. I mean, yes, we were stone broke (which might have been part of my problem, come to think of it) but even then it didn’t seem worth the effort to save two or three dollars on socks.

Fast forward a few years. Money was tight, and I had little children who had high hopes that Santa would bring them special gifts they’d asked for—and one of those gifts felt nearly out of reach to me. It was our year to have Thanksgiving with my husband’s family, and after the dinner dishes were done and the food was put away, the women crowded around the table thumbing through the newspaper ads.

Not wanting to be anti-social, I joined them, and picked up an ad for a big chain store. Low and behold, there, on the front page of the ad, was the very-expensive-almost-unattainable gift my oldest son wanted so badly, offered at a much more manageable price than I ever expected to find it. In fact, it was about half the price I’d seen it on other days, making the unattainable gift seem somehow, maybe, possibly attainable.  

A small flame of possibility sparked inside me, fanned by the crazy women surrounding me (and I mean crazy in the most endearing way possible) and before we left that evening, my sister-in-law and I had made a plan. We would go to that store, and we would purchase that gift—and others.

To be continued…

*In case you don’t know what Black Friday is, it’s the day after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, and the day business managers hope to sell enough merchandise to put those businesses in the black for the year.

Because I’m Thankful

This week, I will cook turkey and pie and potatoes and about 20 other delicious things and spend a special holiday with all but one member of my immediate family (my oldest son will be in Utah). Then, my daughters and I will spend the afternoon PLANNING a massive shopping trip for Friday.

FRIDAY. Not Thursday.

I have long been a Black Friday junkie. Even an addict, if you want to call a spade a spade. And my daughters have joined me in this obsession. But this year, some stores are opening on Thursday in order to try to entice some of us crazy addicts into skipping out of our Thanksgiving dinner—time that is actually very important—for…shopping. And as much as I love it, as much as I’ve been an advocate of great deals, this is too much for me.  

Yes, I’m aware that some stores are opening in the late evening, but that still requires all store employees to work through the holiday, which is a big deal. (I’ve worked in retail—these days are the reason people quit.)

I would feel horribly ungrateful were I to prioritize material things over this very special day. And so while we may jump online for some great things, my family and I will be sticking to tradition and not leaving our house for our adventures until the clock tolls midnight. I know I’m only one person, but I don’t want to be one single person who contributes to the problem. I have too many reasons for which I am thankful to squander away the one day of the year set aside for remembering my blessings.

My readers are among those blessings. So thank you for your amazing, wonderful support.

Regardless of where or how you spend your Thanksgiving, I hope you take a minute to remember all the blessings in your life. Happy Thanksgiving! 

Trying Something New

Have you ever watched that show extreme couponing? Last week, on a night when I couldn’t sleep due to my excessively stuffy nose and awful cough, I stayed up late watching episodes, and was astounded and amazed at how much stuff those women could get for either a very small amount of money, or completely free.

So I asked the only expert I know—my daughter—if people really get into couponing like that. Turns out, daughter has a friend whose mother does this and who has accumulated rooms and rooms of food storage.

Me: Huh.

Her: Mom, we should totally try it. They have all kinds of good stuff and they let us eat as much as we want cuz it was free.

Me: ??

Her: Really, I’m serious.

Me: You act like I never feed you. And that looks like a lot of work, which requires a lot of time and thought and calculations.

Her: But they save thousands of dollars. Please, let’s just try it. I’ll help. It’ll be a project we can do together. It will be fun.

This is how I have come to be considering attempting a single shopping trip in which I try to cut my grocery bill in half with the use of coupons. That it can be done, I have no doubt. The question is if it can be done by me, and if I can come home with grocery items my family will actually eat or use, without spending my week obsessing over sales and coupons when I should be writing.

What do you think? Is it possible?

Stay tuned next week to find out how it went.

**Don’t forget to enter my October Give Back Giveaway. The deadline has been extended to midnight tonight.

Hitting the Right Target

On a recent shopping trip, my daughter and I discovered that our favorite anchor retailers have done away with certain sections of the women’s clothing department, and chosen to instead merge all previous sections into an entire floor of woman’s clothing chaos. We spent thirty minutes wandering around, searching, and then gave up and went to a smaller store that could be more easily navigated.

I understand what store executives are trying to accomplish. By merging all the departments together, they hope shoppers will look farther and wider, expand their vision, and theoretically purchase more, or spend more money on higher-end clothing items.

On paper it makes sense. But in reality, there are problems with the logic.

People are different. They just are. In size, shape, tastes, needs, desires, color-choices, and a million other important ways. Dividing the store into sections according to size, occasion, and style makes shopping easier on consumers.

For instance, had Dillards not done away with the juniors department, I most likely would have paid more for my daughter’s shorts, because I could use my store card, and also because the bigger stores guarantee a quality that will last. They stand by their products.

Ahem. If you can find them. Since I couldn’t, we chose to shop elsewhere. I still bought shorts for my daughter. But we got them in a store that was easier to navigate.

The same thing can be said for booksellers dividing books by genre, subject, author, purpose. It helps people find what they want faster. (And in today’s world, we want everything fast.) If I’m looking for a cupcake recipe book, I don’t want to search through the fiction section to find it. Or the self-help section. Or the computer section. I want to go straight to the cooking section and browse the stock there.

Dividing by section doesn’t prevent people from shopping widely, it helps them find what they want faster, allowing more time for shopping in other areas of interest.

Maybe this is why agents and publishers are so specific about what they’re looking for. It thins out the manuscripts, narrows down the choices, makes their jobs easier. Querying, like shopping, is all about researching your target audience or consumer, and hitting the right mark.

In a world rife with chaos, do you think it’s comforting to shop in places that have some semblance of order? Or do you prefer to search for your treasure like a needle in a haystack? (I know some people do, so if you’re reading, speak up!)

A Cherry Flavored Slush-Pile

*Dear non-writer readers, sorry for all the writing posts this week. This is what happens after certain conferences. Can’t be helped. Still, be sure to enter the awesomesauce contest to win a doodled and signed advance copy of Possession by Elana Johnson.*

At the conference last weekend, Becca Stumpf from Prospect agency said something profound, something that put the slush pile in a whole new light for me. She mentioned that writers often ask what they can do to avoid the slush pile, but then she said, “Why would you want to avoid it? The slush pile is this really amazing place to be.”

And you know what? She’s totally right.

I mean, from an agent’s perspective, it must be like sifting through the racks at a one-of-a-kind clothing boutique, or looking for a single pair of custom-made shoes that fits them just right. It must be like…looking for the perfect piece of jewelry. So exciting! Thrilling. A sheer mind-spinning, heart-pounding, limb-shaking adrenaline rush.

If you’re a guy (or a girl who is not a big shopper) you might not get that analogy. So here’s another one. It must be what it feels like getting ready to play a championship sports game. Like a buildup of energy just waiting to explode out of you.

And then—then, when an agent finds that one special book—it probably feels like winning that championship game or finding a sparkly, perfect gem (for an unbelievable price) which you then buy and take home to keep forever and ever.

So yeah, I get that. Maybe the question is not how to avoid that amazing, wonderful, cherry-flavored slush, but rather how to make our work sparkle enough so an agent or editor will want to snatch it up and take it home (to their agency or publishing house) like a trophy.

Our work will get read. Agents and editors are always reading, reading, reading. It’s what they do. Our job is to make sure that once they see OUR manuscript, they will know how special it really is. That, my friends, is the real trick.

Do you agree?

Leftover Pie and a Touch of Insanity

Thanksgiving is over. Dinner with my family was a success, even with around 25 people present. We had plenty of room at the three banquet tables set up end-to-end, enough food to feed twice that number of people, and everyone was in a good mood. Probably because of all the pie.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love pie? My whole family does, and on Thanksgiving Day, you can expect to find a plethora of every kind of pie. Well, okay, maybe there are a few types that we don’t make—depending on who’s coming—but generally, we end up with an entire pie per person. This has been a tradition within my mother’s family since before I was born and longer.

Sounds like a waste, I know. But eventually, it all gets eaten and the consumers of pie are happy. Granted, it takes a few days to finish off the leftovers, but leftovers are a huge part of the big day, right?

It’s like that episode of Friends in which Ross has a meltdown because someone at work stole and ate his Thanksgiving leftover sandwich with the “moist-maker” in it, and has to go to rage management therapy to keep his job. Ever since seeing that episode, I’ve been convinced that without leftovers, Thanksgiving wouldn’t be such a big deal. But I didn’t really need a TV show to tell me that.

Anyway, after the big day was over, I took my girls with me for Black Friday shopping. I’ve gone every year since my kids were little. Yes, it sounds crazy, and I’ve seen and heard a lot of people lamenting the crowds and the insanity of the whole weekend. But I’m a Black Friday shopper, and I’m proud to admit it.

For one thing, I love a great deal. Partly because I’m cheap. When I need to buy something, I prefer to buy it for the smallest amount of money possible. Really, saving five or ten dollars per item adds up. And I can give up a little bit of sleep in order to stretch my budget. Which brings me to another point. I’ve never been rich, and have no idea what it feels like to go out and buy something without first looking at the price tag and evaluating if it’s worth the asking price.

I learned when my kids were small that I can stretch my budget much farther by watching the ads and getting to the stores early in order to purchase highly desired things at half price or lower. Yes, the crowds are insane. Yes, I’ve seen several fistfights over five-dollar Barbies. Yes, I’ve had things snatched out of my arms before, and had to chase someone down to get them back. But I do it for my children. Never has a Christmas passed when they didn’t have that one item that was most important on their wish list under the tree. Not because I paid a fortune for it on ebay, but because I made sure to be at the right place, on the right day and in the right frame of mind. It takes planning, and sacrifice, and guts. And I learned all these things from not only my own mother, but from my dear departed mother-in-law, who taught me the value of strategic planning.

I miss her terribly at this time of year. Her birthday was last Wednesday, and we had so much preparing to do that we never made it to the cemetery. But I thought of her all day, and wondered if she would be proud of how we’re doing. I feel her presence sometimes and know she is watching out for us on the other side of the veil. I hope she knows how much we miss her.

It is in her honor that I will teach my daughters how to get the most out of their money by shopping the ads—even the Black Friday ones. I will teach them how to plan, how to zoom from store to store grabbing and buying only the most important sale items and waiting on the rest. Eventually, everything is featured in some kind of sale or special deal, and when an item we're after is included, we’ll be there. This has been a tradition in the Giles family, one passed from Carol to her girls—including me. It’s a bonding thing, a learning thing, and best of all, a memory we’re creating for the future.

And hopefully when I’m gone my girls will remember our shopping trips fondly and pass the lessons on to their kids so Carol’s tradition will continue into the future. After all, traditions are important in every family, and family is what the holidays are about.

So do me a favor. If you are a Black Friday shopper, be proud. And if you’re on the other team, the one who teases, laments, and boos the die-hards, remember that behind each of us lies an important motivator, a reason for which we make the sacrifice and go to the work it takes to shop on that day. And believe me, it’s a lot of work. Maybe we are a little bit crazy. Insane even. But no one would go to these extremes without a reason—and we all have one. For a select few, the motivators might be consumer greed. But for the vast majority, it’s a matter of savvy money saving skill, done on behalf of the important people in our lives. We are the people who will take risks in order to give a thoughtful gift. Because a gift card can only go so far.

Happy Shopping!

Nichole

In Case You're Wondering...

My tree is up and decorated to not clash with the scarecrows and turkeys on the piano.

My house is mostly clean--except the bathrooms which I will tackle head-on first thing Wednesday.

My fridge (both in the kitchen and in the garage) is full of good food ready to be prepared.

Dinner is planned, people invited, time set, and the turkey is out to thaw before brining. 

The launch party plans are coming along nicely, and the promotional items ordered.

I have officially passed the 50,000 word mark on my National Novel Writing Month project, though I'm still hard at work aiming for the two magic words, the end.

During the month of November, I've had very little sleep, my house has been a wreck (until this week) and I didn't actually go to the grocery store until we had absolutely no food for the kids to eat. But I started a new book, which is now close to finished, I edited my other book and sent it to press. The launch is scheduled, along with some signings, and Thanksgiving, the day of eating, being thankful, and strategy planning, is in one day.  Friday?  We shop. Heaven help us! And yes, I'll be bringing my notebook to pass the time waiting in line.

In case you see me, notebook balanced on a cart overloaded with stuff, trying to write sideways with a pen that keeps running out of ink, don't try to talk to me--I'll be writing!