Black Friday is one of my favorite days of the year. I love waking up early, loading up on caffeine and watching random strangers practically dog pile on top of each other for an article of clothing. I have gone Black Friday shopping every single year for the past five years…until now.

COVID-19 has ruined a lot. I’m not saying that my Black Friday shopping tradition is very high up on the list of 2020’s problems due to COVID-19 such as lack of education, high unemployment and millions of lost lives, it wouldn’t even make the top 100 struggles of 2020, but for me, this one little day is pretty special. 

Two Black Fridays ago, my friend and I were shopping at Oakbrook mall. It had been a pretty busy morning of shopping, lacking any time for rest, water or food. While in line for lunch, I almost passed out. My friend said that my face turned whiter than a sheet of paper. I literally shopped until I dropped. Needless to say, this was a rookie Black Friday shopping moment for me, never to be repeated. Still, I would take the chaos of this day over nothing any time, but that is what 2020 gave me this Black Friday– nothing. 

For the first year in five years, I didn’t wake up at the crack of dawn on the day after Thanksgiving, in fact, I slept in. I decided that rather than going out shopping and possibly adding to the rapidly increasing COVID-19 positivity rate, I would stay in and load up on Thanksgiving leftovers instead. 

Instead of Black Friday shopping this year, I did something I swore to myself five years ago that I would never do: I went Cyber Monday shopping. As a loyal Black Friday supporter, this was very out of character for me. If I order online, I end up spending way too much money on clothes that rarely fit the way I want and then having to go through the excruciating process of returning an online purchase. I love everything about going shopping in person. I need to try on clothes at the store in order to make a sound purchase. I have a cultivating fear that slowly but surely, the world of shopping malls will cease to exist and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos will officially take over the world.

While yes, I have made my fair share of online purchases during quarantine, I never imagined I would be shopping on Cyber Monday rather than in person on Black Friday; however, I did what we all have done best in 2020: I made a compromise.

Behind all of the glamour of the early morning wake up, rummaging through sale bins and waiting in crazy long lines, Black Friday is really only about one thing: the deals. This year, though lacking the in-person appeal, I ended up getting what I always would on a normal Black Friday, really good prices on clothes I would never otherwise buy.  Life is very different this year than ever before, we all know this, but however different and frustrating our day-to-day experiences may seem, the outcomes end up being fairly similar to what they would have been in the past. 

Though this year put a much different spin on Black Friday than years prior, I wound up saving a lot of money and purchasing really great stuff all from the comfort of my own bed and I have 2020 to thank for this. COVID-19 has not brought us many positives (other than positive COVID-19 tests) but it has forced us to adapt to change, to become more flexible and to make the necessary compromises in order to create somewhat positive outcomes. I saved over $100 in purchases and even though I had to pay the shipping tax for my orders, I was able to overcome my stubbornness that refused me to shop on Cyber Monday in the past; therefore, I am counting this as a small 2020 victory in my book, I might even consider shopping on Cyber Monday again next year.