It is “Black Friday”, the day after Thanksgiving when millions of shoppers will go out early to get the best bargains as they shop for Christmas presents or maybe just shop for things they want for themselves and have been waiting for this day to get here. I would’t Go shopping for anything today even if it was free. The traffic will be horrible, the crowds will be rude and crushing, and pushing and shoving. I’ve seen people fight over things that were on sale like having it was their personal right. Back in the mid 1980’s the big toy for Christmas was a Cabbage Patch doll. Trying to find one was next to impossible here in the United States. Prices went out the roof for one and women were having knock-down fights in the stores for them. (Lots of Christmas love being shown ya’ know.) Well, I was traveling back and forth to Germany that year. On one trip close to Christmas, I went to a local store outside of one of the Air Bases that I was doing temporary duty and there on the shelves were rows and stacks of Cabbage Patch dolls. They weren’t any higher than any other doll and there was no rush to get at them. They were the exact doll that was selling in the US except that their “adoption papers” were in German. I bought three and carried them home. I was a Christmas hero that year to my my three young ladies.

Jim and I put up the new bird feeders yesterday and I’m waiting for the first birds to “discover it”. It sits on a 4x4 post and I put a two foot long baffle on the post to keep the squirrels off of the feeder. Hopefully it will work. I put sunflower seeds in it and as I said yesterday, I have now emptied that can and must go get some. I doubt seriously that there will be a “rush” at the bird feed store, although there might be people buying presents for their “pet’s Christmas stocking”. I really don’t like it when people put there pets in stupid costumes for their “family-photos”. Maybe the animals don’t care but I think it is humiliating for and to the animal.

Jime and I have a couple of jobs that we need to do today. Ms. Kate and I are sending the kids home with a dining room table for their kitchen. It is a famiy pass-down. I have two more that I have refinished that are also famiy heirlooms. So, We’ll send this one home with them and than he and I have to get one of the others up from the basement and put it in the dining room. Then, we also have to bring the Christmas tree up from the the basement. And, he and I have to do a little work on the yard sweeper that the kids bought me. So, we’ve got work to do before it rains today. I guess that means I better get busy.

Have a great day.