When it comes to Christmas shopping for my children I am a little different than probably most moms. First of all, in general I do not enjoy shopping. I am not a “mall mom,” one of those types that trek to the mall every-other-week. In fact, I probably get to the mall about once a year.
In fact, I so dislike shopping that several years ago when my husband and I took a trip to Mexico he did the entire bargain shopping and finagling with the sellers. I just tried to hurry him along.
So needless to say I do not participate in Black Friday. I tried it once, when my now 16-year-old son was about 2 years old. I will never forget standing in line for an hour at Kohl’s Department store, early in the morning, with him crying. I have never been back to do any of my shopping on Black Friday.
So for this mom…it’s all about Cyber Monday. Yesterday was Cyber Monday and instead of getting out my comfortable shoes for a day of walking and shopping, I flipped open my laptop.
I would have to say that for just about every Christmas most of my shopping has been done online. It is actually getting easier now that my children are teens. That’s because they like the big ticket items so it generally means one or two gifts. Granted, they are usually very expensive but it’s still easier for me to look for only three large gifts.
The thing about Cyber Monday, however, is that you have the same dilemma as many do on Black Friday. Sale priced items can be sold out online. Here I was on my computer at 9 a.m. and already an item that I wanted to get for my 6th grader was no longer available online. As I tried one website after another, I was quickly finding that it wasn’t available at stores either. Great…I was going to miss this great price on this particular item.
However Target saved me and thankfully my nearest Target is just about 5 minutes away. So I was able to hop into my car and pick up the very last one they had available. I felt like I struck gold. Still…this is supposed to be Cyber Monday so why do I have to drive to a store?
The good news for me is that one particular item that I wanted to get for my 16-year-old son was not only available online for a good price but it came with a free GPS. I thought that was absolutely perfect as he will be driving on his own soon.
Unfortunately the item I wanted for my 13-year-old daughter is not available anywhere online for the price I was looking for. I can’t believe that at 9 a.m. things online are already sold out.
Needless to say this mom will never have a traditional Black Friday outing…I will still stick with Cyber Monday and enjoy the convenience of shopping for my teens in my pajamas. However I must make a note to myself that next year I will have to get up much earlier to begin my online shopping.
How do you shop for your teens?
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