Black Friday: Shop till you drop

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The holiday shopping season got off to a roar Friday as consumers flocked to local stores, braving predawn darkness and temperatures in the teens to seek blockbuster bargains.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, so-called Black Friday, is heralded as the start of the holiday shopping season, even though major retailers have tried to draw early shoppers with big sales in recent weeks. It’s one of the biggest shopping days of the year. According to a survey conducted for the National Retail Federation, as many as 133 million Americans will be out shopping this weekend.

3:35 a.m.

About 40 people packed the entrance of the new J.C. Penney store at First & Main Town Center on Powers Boulevard. Others would be forced to line up in the cold as the crowd grew before the store’s 4 a.m. opening.

Michelle Choi was near the front of the crowd. She’s a regular Black Friday shopper, she said, “but this is the first year at 4 a.m. It’s too early.”

She started checking out Black Friday ads several days ago online. She was at

J.C. Penney to pick up a free Disney snow globe and to buy some dishes, then she planned to head to Target.

“And then,” she said, “I hope to be done for the day.”

3:56 a.m.

The doors to J.C. Penney opened and people flooded in, as if a faucet had been turned on.

Teri Putman, store manager, helped hand out the snow globes from two large bins. Two more bins were in waiting.

“Morning,” she said. “Thanks for coming in. Good morning.”

Black Friday crowds are nothing new for Putman, who has worked for J.C. Penney for nearly 30 years. But this was her earliest opening: “They tested it in a couple of stores, and it was real successful last year,” she said of the move from a 5 a.m. to a 4 a.m. opening.

4:07 a.m.

The flood of people entering J.C. Penney slowed to a steady trickle with no end in sight. As people continued to enter, some were already lined up at registers.

“Penney’s has got to be thrilled,” one shopper said as she came in.

4:25 a.m.

With a 5 a.m. opening still 35 minutes away, the line at Best Buy on Powers Boulevard was hundreds long, snaking along the store and around Men’s Wearhouse.

Alex de la Peña stood near the back of the line. His wife, he said, was across the street at Kohl’s. He was in line to get a 32-inch LCD TV for $449.99, $300 off the regular price.

“It’s worth it to save $300,” he said, “but I wouldn’t classify this as fun.”

4:50 a.m.

April Plunk stood at the front of a line that stretched almost entirely around the Toys “R” Us near The Citadel mall.

“I’m actually supposed to be in the hospital,” she said. She had appendicitis and had been in the hospital for observation, she said. “I skipped out of the hospital to be here for my kids.”

Shalome Moore, also at the head of the line, said she was hoping to buy a Zune MP3 player, normally $199.99 but on sale for $79.99. “That’s really good,” she said.

She had been in line since before midnight. Despite her spot at the front, she was wary of the competition.

“We’re going to have to roll,” she said.

4:57 a.m.

The doors to Toys “R” Us opened, and several small clots of people who had been standing off to the side blended into the front of the line. People behind them who had waited for hours in the biting cold were not amused.

“This is freaking ridiculous,” one woman exclaimed.

“The back of the line is way back there,” another woman warned others who were working to sneak into line.

A few minutes later, one man walked out with bad news for those who were still hoping to get the Zune deal.

“They’re out,” he said.

5:30 a.m.

At the Target store at Academy Boulevard and Platte Avenue, crowd control was on the mind of one manager.

“There will be no running, no pushing, no stealing other people’s carts,” she advised people lined up for the store’s 6 a.m. opening.

Victoria Finnigan waited at the head of the line. She was at Target to buy an external hard drive for about $80, half the regular price, she said.

She’s a regular Black Friday shopper, though it was her first time at the front of a line, she said. “I’ve been doing this for seven years. I keep doing it because I get great deals. It’s always satisfying.”

6:55 a.m.

The sky had lightened to gray, but the parking lot outside the J.C. Penney store on Powers remained full.

“It’s going very well,” store manager Putman said. MP3 players, houseware and a prelit Christmas tree seemed to be the most popular items of the morning, she said.

There were still Disney snow globes in the last two bins, waiting for shoppers to pluck them out.

“We just couldn’t stand up there and hand them out anymore,” Putman said.

7:45 a.m.

Many would-be bargain hunters were leaving Circuit City empty-handed nearly three hours after the store on North Academy Boulevard opened. But for Suzanne Benner, it was her third store and the first to have what she was looking for.

“We went to Target at 6 a.m., didn’t find a 22-inch computer monitor that was on sale, then we went to Best Buy looking for a laptop for about $300 — which would have been awesome — but they were sold out,” she said.

She and her brother, Nathan, were into more than an hour of standing in line at Circuit City, with the cash register nowhere in sight. The Benners were buying a stack of $7 memory cards for Nintendo’s Wii game system, normally priced at $40 apiece.

“Some of the savings are great,” Suzanne Benner said, “but I don’t know if Black Friday is worth it, if it takes five hours to get stuff.”

8:45 a.m.

The Citadel mall was bustling less than an hour after opening, though not packed.

Beth Lee rested on a bench, shopping bags at her feet. She is from Parker, in town visiting friends, and this was her first adventure with Black Friday shopping. And it might be her last, she said.

“I’m getting too old for this,” she said.

On the north end of town, parking lots at Chapel Hills Mall in northern Colorado Springs were nearly full. A 6 a.m. mall-sponsored blitz, in which 500 shoppers received free goodies bags with samples of merchandise, coupons and prizes such as gift certificates and products, including a Wii, drew a throng.

“At 5 a.m., we had a huge line, a couple hundred people, for the bags,” said Jill Lais, mall marketing director. “The volume of traffic has been good — it’s not just a lot of people in the mall, but people with shopping bags.”

9 a.m.

Ray and Doris Taylor had one of those shopping ordeals that they hope they can later laugh about. But they were still fuming while resting their feet inside Chapel Hills Mall.

The couple arrived at Sears at 4:50 a.m. for its 5 a.m. opening, only to discover that the doors were already open and a buzzing crowd was inside. They found the tools they wanted, waited in line for quite a while to reach the cash register, then spent another 40 minutes in front of the computerized cash register because it was on the fritz.

“I came in with a headache and I left with one hell of a headache,” Doris Taylor said.

Ray Taylor chimed in: “We got good deals though.”

9:30 a.m.

Monika Wilkins had already been up for eight hours and had been shopping for six. It was the first Black Friday experience for the registered nurse who lives in Limon. A friend talked her into it.

“Standing in line in the freezing cold for half an hour, waiting for Kohl’s to open, was the worst part,” she said while taking a break at Chapel Hills Mall. “When the store finally opened at 4, it was just crazy — people shoving and cutting in front of you.”

But she found good bargains, particularly on children’s toys. “I’ll probably do it again,” she said.

10:30 a.m.

Snow was turning Black Friday white in northern Colorado Springs by midmorning, and the Wal-Mart on Razorback Road was fairly manageable for shoppers.

Toys and other gifts filled Missy Graham’s cart.

“I’m figuring out how to get it back,” said Graham, who lives in Tennessee and was in town for a wedding. “You just can’t beat the Black Friday sales.”

BIG BARGAINS

How much could you save on Black Friday? Here were a few early morning doorbuster deals:

Toys “R” Us: Microsoft Zune MP3 and video player, $79.99, regularly $199.99. Spider-Man Origins Signature Series action figure, $2.99, regularly $14.99.

Best Buy: 32-inch Dynex LCD HDTV, $449.99, regularly $749.99. Sony laptop, $399.99, regularly $749.99.

J.C. Penney: McArthur leather massage recliner, $298.88 after rebate, regularly $799.

Kmart: Sylvania 20-inch LCD TV, $197, regularly $299.99.

Circuit City: Compaq Presario laptop, $299.99 after rebate, regularly $649.99.

Radio Shack: Mio super-thin widescreen GPS, $149.99, regularly $299.99.