The below was originally posted on December 2nd of 2014, but the bombardment of never ending sales/deals/things-i-would-never-buy-but-now-feel-I-must-have-them, I felt it appropriate to repost. Plus, why not for Throwback Thursday?

Did you know the first official Cyber Monday was in 2005? After 10 years, you’d think they would just consolidate Black Friday and Cyber Monday into one big week. Oh, wait…..THEY HAVE! Amazon has their Cyber Monday Deals Week and just about every other retailer around has their own version.

Yes, I’m guilty of “buying” into Amazon’s deals, so sue me, but I refuse to actually set foot in a store. I rarely ever do to begin with, and certainly not now with all of the chaos. Okay, I’m rambling, before this turns into a whole other post, I’ll stop. Hope you’re having a great week!

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I’m a semi-hypocrite. The after Thanksgiving extravaganza crap-fest deals ummm, deals always strike a chord with me in a negative way. Instead of simply enjoying good food and drink with loved ones (which, in and of itself is stressful work!), so many people have one thing on their mind instead…..SALES!!

No thanks to commercials constantly spouting out about how stores open the evening of Thanksgiving to kick-off their great deals and our endless hunger to snatch everything for everyone on our list, it’s something to expect every year. And every year I scoff and bicker at the commercials or people talking about where they want to go first or who has the best deals. It drives me insane!

But then, I get sucked in. It starts with an innocent click on some ad that somehow knows I was looking at those Ninja Turtle toys on Amazon, and before I know it, I have 20 different items in my cart and if I add just one more I’ll get a free gift with my order. “Free gift”, sounds redundant to me, and very gimmicky. No matter, I want that free gift and I’ll be damned if I don’t get it!

This happened to me several times leading up to Thanksgiving, the  Black Friday “week” deals, and like a fish in front of a rubber worm, I took the bait; multiple times. Since I do have some dignity, I only kept to the online deals and kept away from stores at all costs. I actually had to go to Costco with Avery on Black Friday, and on my way, made a quick change in direction to go to a small grocery store instead. Best decision ever!

Keeping out of the physical stores allows me the status semi-hypocrite, right?

My wife usually sides with me on the absurdness of the deals, but her and I both had our eyes asphyxiated to our screens in search of gifts for each other. My eyes still burn and don’t feel like they’ll recover soon.

I remember when Black Friday used to be for in-store deals and Cyber Monday was for online deals, but now they’ve just become one big melting pot of sales from the week leading up to Thanksgiving and the following weekend. The coined terms are irrelevant and I vote for a change.

How about removing Friday and Monday from the names and just say “Black Cyber Deals Week”? Technically, that’s exactly what it’s become. The good news is that I got everything covered for Going Mom’s gifts, and she’s the one I want to get something for the most. My mom (G-Ma) is the other one and I think we’re good there too.

Have I gone on long enough? I’m going to say yes.

*Steps off soapbox*

In other news, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with just the three of us at home and great food cooked by yours truly. We didn’t have a big spread, but just enough for seconds and leftovers. Mmmmm, cold turkey is the best!!

Avery has been taking a couple steps at a time now and I feel a “She’s Walking!” post will be coming soon. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here she is searching for leftovers to make a cold turkey sandwich.

What are your thoughts on all of the sales?

Do you go to the stores or stick with online only; or nothing at all?

Still have a lot of shopping to do or are you all set?