Black Friday Shopping Deals!

Recently, I have posted about the holiday of Thanksgiving.  I hope you all enjoyed the holiday with your family, friends, and delicious meal! Today, I want to discuss the day after Thanksgiving.  The Friday after Thanksgiving, it known as "Black Friday."  "Black Friday" is the day that begins the holiday shopping season.  On this day, all retailers and stores off many extreme discounts on their products.  Many items such as clothing, electronics, and home furnishings can be purchased at a fraction of the normal prices.  This Black Friday, many stores open at 10:00pm on Thanksgiving night!  Did you see any crazy lines outside of stores?
This year was the first time I decided to take part in the Black Friday fun.  My mother, cousin, his boyfriend and I decided to first check the deals at the local mall near my parents' home.  We first waited on line to enter Macy's, the department store.  We were told that we had to wait for twenty people to leave the store before we were allowed in.  There were so many people there, that there was a wait to even get in!  Then,once we were inside we spilt up, and did some Christmas shopping.  The deals were great!  After Macy's, we went went on to other stores including H&M, J.Crew, Banana Republic, Express, The Gap and Aldo.
After the mall, we went to Best Buy.  My cousin bought a flat screen TV for 80 dollars.  It normally cost 280 dollars.
Overall, my first Black Friday shopping experience was really fun.  I enjoyed my time with some of my favorite people shopping at 1:00 in the morning, but next year I think I will sleep in!

Vocabulary
1) retailers: stores, places that sell things
2) extreme: not typical, very great
3) furnishings: furniture, or things you put around your house
4) purchased: bought
5) deals: an great price
6) department store: a large store that has different departments which sell different types of items like women's clothing, men's clothing, children's clothing, shoes, jewelry, make-up, etc.

Cloze Activity: Complete the following sentences by filling the blanks with a vocabulary word from above.


1) Vincent went to Macy's, which is a _______________________, to buy his Dad a gift for his birthday.
2) White water rafting and skydiving are ________________ hobbies.
3) On Black Friday, I ________________ many Christmas gifts for my family and friends.
4) My new house is empty, so I need to buy some ___________________ to fill it up.
5) I could not believe the ___________ on Black Friday; I saved over $300.
6) The Gap, Express, and H&M were just some of the ______________ that were offering deals that I could not resist on Black Friday.

Grammar Point
Conjunctions are words in English that join two simple sentences together to make one compound sentence.  Some conjunctions that exist in English can be remembered with the acronym FANBOYS.  This acronym stands for the following:

F= for
A= and
N= nor
B= but
O= or
Y= yet
S= so

In English, we must put commas in our sentences BEFORE the conjunction, or before one of the FANBOYS.  Read the following example:

I enjoyed my time with some of my favorite people shopping at 1:00 in the morning, but next year I think I will sleep in!

The two sentences are:
1) I enjoyed my time with some of my favorite people shopping at 1:00 in the morning.
2) Next year I think I will sleep in.

These two sentences are joined together by the conjunction "but".  Notice I also wrote a comma after the word morning and BEFORE the FANBOY "but".  Watch the Schoolhouse Rock video below!

Grammar Exercise
Combine the following sentences by using a comma and a FANBOY.  Re-write the complete sentence.

1) School was fun yesterday.
I think tomorrow will be better.

2) The first store did not have what we were looking for.
We went to another one.

3) My cousin did not find that many deals at Macy's.
I found so many!