I always thought it was a great idea until I'm standing in line....

Hmm... yes, Christmas shopping. I guess it could be other shopping too... 'just because' shopping, 'birthday' shopping, etc. I am the opposite of you, I would get fed up if I had to wait over an hour at a 'government' service counter.... government employees are the laziest, most-protected (some are unionzed) bunch of people - in general. I feel if you work for the government, you need to get your crap in order and DO WHAT YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO - AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE, WITH GREAT CUSTOMER SERVICE - or you should be fired because someone ELSE will be willing to do whatever you're not. Think about this. TSA are government employees. They get away with mauling and disrespecting people and invading their privacy. The people who deny disability, medicare, and veteran claims are government employees. They routinely deny and re-deny VALID claims, causing overspending of funds to pay themselves over and over as well as all sorts of problems for the person who is having to refile claims continuously. People who work for unemployment and other government social programs are - OF COURSE - government employees. People should never be waiting so long for things. If they don't have enough workers, there are PLENTY of unemployed people who need jobs! Honestly, people should be axed immediately if they are not performing, and I mean doing their jobs as they are laid out in job descriptions AND getting things accomplished in a reasonable amount of time, which is a good deal faster than any of them ever do things. Sorry for the random rant about this but it all came about because I never feel it is NORMAL for government employees to half-@ss anything. If anything, they ought to be examples of BETTER QUALITY.

That's not too bad. I only had to stand in line at TRU - Walmart only had lines INSIDE. Target really had no lines at all.... for checkout but like I said, it went quickly. There was really no line at Kmart, and none at Big Lots. I went to Subway to grab breakfast and there was NO line there either lol.

No lol. My friend got up at 2 AM so she could go wait at Target at 3 AM. I went to Walmart at 11:45 and left Walmart at 3, got coffee, then went to Target and parked and sat in my nice warm car and read for awhile.... until about 4:05. Then I went directly into Target, got a cart, browsed a bit, picked up what I wanted, got in line to pay, and left. I never had to wait outside in the cold, most of what I wanted was still available when I got inside the store, there was no craziness like Walmart, and overall it was a relaxing experience. Granted, if WHAT YOU WANT is electronics, like a deeply discounted big screen tv or a deeply discounted small flat screen, an xbox, a wii, a laptop, netbook, iPhone, iPod, or whatever, THAT may be a reason people camp out for hours or days to be first. The stores NEVER get enough inventory of those items for the demand, which I think is stupid. If they ordered MORE, then technically MORE people would buy them, but they only get a few and it cheats a lot of people out of getting them and the stores of course lose out on the customers that would have bought them. Even if they are discounted, you know they are still making money, especially if someone buys 3 or 4 of them because they are less than half the regular price. Multiply that by the hundreds of people waiting in line and they would make quite a profit... if only.

The cold was brutal.... I did try to dress for it but I never expected to be outside for an hour. I underestimated the size of the crowd and lines, obviously. If I had gotten there earlier, at least I would have gotten in the store, but I likely would have had to stand outside for the same amount of time. It wasn't SO bad though, since I found the same deal or better elsewhere after the fact, the only thing I missed out on was getting a free coloring book and crayons with my purchase lol.

I think the longest line I stood in with Ali was the first ride at Disneyland lol. This is the first year I remember having to stand in a long line to get INSIDE a store though. I know that I'll always have to stand in some sort of a line to check out, but it was tough being outside in the dark and the cold. I chatted with some friends via texting and I used my music player but I was alone. I found out later that a friend of mine was also there, but she left about 30 min before I did due to the long wait. I wish she had called me and told me she was there, I'd have had her come stand with me in line, I was ahead of her lol. I've never waited in a long line for tickets for a movie, I have never done one of those premiere/midnight first run shows. Now if it were for something where maybe you got to meet the actors, it MIGHT be worth it, depending on what it was. I remember that we were out on a date night once, and we noticed the mall looked like a refugee camp, there were people all over the sidewalk, camped out, blocking all the area in front of the theater and part of the mall entrance, and then inside there were those areas cordoned off with ropes, back and forth, with people all lined up, with camp chairs, blankets, pillows, food, drinks, laptops, ipods... it was insane. THEN I realized it was the premiere for New Moon.... those people had been camping out since the previous afternoon in order to get tickets for the midnight premiere! I think I've done pretty good.. there are a few things I have to wait to be shipped and some things I have to wait to get and then wait for shipped, but I did the majority yesterday clothing is difficult, period. There is no such thing as 'one size fits all'. I hate the idea lol. I was EXTREMELY excited about the zhu zhu playsets, only because $5 for the center build piece is so much better than $34.99! I was also able to get the attached playsets for each opening for $5 too.... as long as we don't run out of batteries, we'll have a whole family of hampster pets that don't eat or poo anywhere and a whole little house/community for them to live in! Endless fun for the kiddos!