When I first started my Instagram under TheBeautySwatcher, I used to have a weekly post called The Friday Five where I did a 5 minute mini review on a beauty product. Ok, to be honest, I only did that for like four weeks, but whose counting? Anyways, I decided to revive The Friday Five, but instead of doing a beauty review, I thought do a fun list of 5 things that tickled my fancy that day.
Since this is our inaugural edition, which happens to fall on, arguably, the most famous Friday of the year, I decided to kick it off by highlighting the Top 5 Things I LOVE about Black Friday.
#5 Shopping – like DUH!
I am going to be honest here. Shopping on Black Friday has become more of a holiday on its own, but I am not one of those people that shops on Thanksgiving day or wakes up at 4am to buy a TV for $100. It’s not really about the sales for me, but more about the experience. I have this tradition where I wake up like around 7am, grab a latte at Starbucks and head on over to the mall and just wing it. I don’t have a plan of attack on which sales to hit first or mapped out the best route to all my favorite stores and I don’t really do my Christmas shopping on that day. I kind of just walk around with my kids and if I see something I like that is a good deal, I buy it. Then we grab a nice lunch at a restaurant and go to the movies, where we always catch the latest….
#4 Disney Movies (and or Disney Pixar)
Disney always releases a movie right before the long Thanksgiving weekend and ever since I had kids, I have taken them to watch a movie on Black Friday after a day of shopping. We have seen Tangled, Frozen, The Good Dinosaur, Moana and this Friday we will be adding Coco to the list. I seriously cannot wait to see this movie. Just the music alone has me all worked up and, as a Latina, I love that it has a Latino cast (Gael Garcia Marquez, Benjamin Bratt and Edward James Olmos). Let’s not even talk about the animation and the colors! All I know is that Disney better do a collab with a beauty brand and release a Coco palette.
#3 Four Day Weekend (Woot, Woot!)
Do I really need to go into detail on this subject? I live in the US. We have like 56 LESS national paid holidays than any other industrialized country. Knowing that I have a day off on the biggest shopping day of the year is what practically makes the other 364 bearable.
#2 Christmas Tree
It seems that this day is full of traditions, but while the morning is spent at the store and the afternoon at the movies, the evening has always been dedicated to putting up the Christmas tree with the family. I don’t like to do it before Thanksgiving, so the Friday after Turkey Day, we take the tree out of storage, grab the containers with all the lights and ornaments and decorate. The Hubs will set up the lights and complain that the cat chewed the cords last year and some bulbs don’t work. The kids will start strong and help, but after about 30 minutes, drift toward their iPhones and iPads and that leaves me to finish the job. It doesn’t bother me. I kind of like it.
#1 Kick starting the Christmas Season
Aside from the shopping and mayhem, the day after Thanksgiving is officially the start of the Christmas Season. Some people say it starts on Thanksgiving day (Errrr…WRONG!) and others say December 1 (Wrong again). It officially starts on Black Friday because that still gives you a few extra precious days of candy canes, gingerbread cookies, Christmas lights, snowmen (Sandmen if you live in Florida like me), Christmas carols, parties, cocktails (lot’s of cocktails!), ugly Christmas sweaters, holiday movies, and especially days off (remember I live in the US).
Happy Friday, my friends!
Maritza
The Beauty Swatcher 