While I was chatting with the other ladies during the HuffPost Live segment, one of the women said that it’s not quite Thanksgiving without Black Friday shopping (or something to that effect). That got me thinking and it is possible to have Black Friday traditions that don’t include an ounce of shopping. My family has one of them.

Black Friday in Mommyland.

On this day, every year, for the past eight years Bill and I have helped my mom put up her Christmas tree. Even before there was Mommyland there was this Black Friday tradition.

The branches ready to be fluffed.

I’ve told you about this infamous Christmas tree before.

This year to entertain myself while putting the tree together I made up songs about the tree set to the tune of various Christmas songs.

As much as I bitch about the tree and what I pain in the ass it is to get up and together I actually have fun doing it. Shhhhh, don’t tell anyone. I spend the better part of the afternoon with my Mom and Bill (two of my favorite people) laughing and joking about the process.

The Best Part of our Tradition.

Of course Bill and I don’t just volunteer ourselves for this task, there’s something in it for us too.

RIBS!!!

For our trouble we are rewarded with the BEST. RIBS. EVER!!!

After we work up an appetite putting the 100+ branches on the tree we sit down to a delicious meal.

What I’m getting at here is that some of the best Black Friday traditions have nothing to do with shopping or spending money. What could possibly get you more in the holiday spirit than getting the Christmas tree up?

Do you have any Black Friday traditions?

I can barely remember a time when my parents didn’t have their artificial Christmas tree. I’m pretty sure they got it when I was in college, but that’s neither here nor there.

That tree has always been a pain in the ass, but somehow over the past five years Bill and I have been enlisted to come over the day after Thanksgiving to put it together. It’s now a family tradition.

First things first, the furniture has to be moved around the room to accommodate the tree.

The next thing that happens is the archeological dig to get to the box with the tree pieces, somehow it always seems to get buried in the basement. The box is way too big and bulky to carry upstairs, so we make nine million trips up and down the stairs to get all those pieces to the living room. Oh, did I mention the damn tree goes together LIMB BY LIMB? Oh yeah, and it’s NINE FREAKING FEET TALL!

We’ve finally dug the tree out and got all the branches up the stairs, now it’s time to separate them. At one time the tree had color coded tags on each branch so that we; one, knew which branches went together, and two, knew what order they went on the tree. A lot of those little tags are gone making the process even longer than it already was.

Now that the branches are separated, the tedious task of getting them on the tree begins. My mom and Bill “fluff” the branches and hand them to me to put on the pole tree. I usually spend the afternoon getting static shocks, sneezing my head off and getting covered in oxidation. Good times! There used to be directions for what color goes in what order, but like many of the colored tags, the directions have disappeared. Now, we hold the branches up next to each other to see which one’s are longer so we know how they go on the pole tree.

Eventually we make it to the top of the tree…There’s an extra branch…CRAP! I think we just stuffed it in somewhere.

Thankfully we don’t have to do the decorating.

January first the whole process will begin again…In reverse.