And how is everyone’s Thanksgiving break unfolding so far? Any horrific family dinner stories that you’ll eventually laugh about in the far, far off future? Any wacky traditions that have now withstood another year?

For me, I had a lazy blur of two days over here with Thanksgiving and Black Friday. It started with me waking up groggily Thanksgiving morning to watch the parade on TV. Chalk that up to another year not watching the parade in person. All that research done beforehand, all that psyching myself up to brave the cold and the crowd-poof! all because I realized I would have to get to Manhattan by 6AM. HAHAHA. Me. Awake and willingly dragged to Manhattan by 6 in the morning? Pfffft. Let’s be reasonable here.

I have to admit, watching the parade on TV, snug in my bed and comfortably texting the best friend isn’t so bad. A girl could get used to that. ‘Course it’d be nice to be there cheering in person when Pikachu floats by and be restrained by the best friend when The Wanted perform mere feet away. I swear, I’m not as deranged as I sound. Well, maybe a little bit. The best friend understands me, okay?!

http://youtu.be/a1npYBIzMeU

Black Friday was celebrated the only way it deserved: shopping. The best friend and I had it all planned out: wake up texts (and calls, depending on my conscious state) at 6:30 AM, a quick change into jeans and a coat, and we would meet outside my house in half an hour, ready to hit the mall in our neighborhood just before the doors open. We didn’t have a long list of things to buy, and we weren’t going to fight anyone for a must-have anything. We were mainly going to go “for the experience” because neither of us have ever truly experienced Black Friday in all its mass-shopping hysteria glory.

Cue 6AM, on the Friday in question and we’ve surprisingly outdone ourselves by both being awake at 6 in the morning. Wake-up texts: successful! Then we made the mistake of having an actual conversation at 6 in the morning when half our brains were still unconscious and the other halves were begging to go back into the aforementioned unconscious state. So of course, we did what only the two of us could do. We talked each other back to sleep.

But that doesn’t mean we didn’t still make the most of our lazy selves! We got ourselves out at 3:30 in the afternoon and still walked around the mall. Yeah, it was kinda useless because all the good deals were already gone by then but you know what? IT WAS A GOOD EXPERIENCE. We had a blast testing out perfume, trying on boots, and debating whether the orange loofah or the purple loofah felt less flimsy. In the end, we left with new boots, an orange loofah, and smelling like five different perfumes exploded on us. Ah, gotta love the sensory-overriding smell of friendship.

As with all holidays, no work was done whatsoever, but as with all holidays, they eventually end, and you snap back to reality and have to admit to yourself that yes, you do have a paper-or 7-that you need to start writing and no, that letter to Hogwarts is not coming anytime soon. Sigh.