Tales from Black Friday

Black Friday, which began early for them, also ended early.

—Susan Reimer

Opening the doors

In the Black Friday faceoff between "stay up late" and "get up early," stay up late appears to have won.

Westfield Annapolis mall general manager Patrick Madden said that in the hours between midnight and 3 a.m., the crowds were as large as the mall sees on the final Saturday before Christmas.

"Everyone thinks Black Friday is our biggest shopping day," said Madden. "But it is really the last Saturday before Christmas, and it was just wall-to-wall people."

People tapped their watches impatiently outside retailers who were waiting for the clock to tick past midnight. The busiest stores were American Eagle Outfitters, Banana Republic, Vera Bradley and Aeropostale, which were offering deep discounts for the first hour or so.

The crowds thinned to a trickle before dawn, but the parking lot in Annapolis was packed again by 8:30 a.m. as the crowds returned for a more normal shopping experience.

Wendy Zurenko and her daughter Casey, 16, and friend Jordan Rolley, 16, of Calvert County were among the early birds. By 6:30 a.m., they'd been to their car twice to drop off packages.

"I never went to bed," said Casey, who bought something for her boyfriend but found many more bargains for herself.

Mom Wendy saved a bundle on college linens for her son at J.C. Penney. "About $140," she said, raising her Starbucks coffee cup in a kind of salute. "Next are the outlets in Queenstown."

Fading

Krista Schline, 16, of Pasadena was curled up on a lounging spot in the middle of Westfield Annapolis, fading fast. She and her mother, Linda, and sister Destiny, 12, had been out since 1 a.m. Krista had stayed up all night, while her mom and sister caught a pre-shopping nap.

They'd found lots of bargain, Linda said, but her husband, David, wasn't due to pick them up until 9 a.m.

Are you going to make it, Krista was asked. "No," she replied.

Meanwhile, in the LoveSac furniture, where sink-down-into-it-comfort is for sale, employees and a friend had their feet up after a busy couple of early morning hours when everything in the store was 30 percent off. They looked just as wiped out as Krista Schline.

"Sit down and try it out," said manager Brad Mamalis to a 6:30 a.m. visitor. "I might never get up," was the reply.

—Susan Reimer

Breakfast of champions

The biggest deal for Steffany Thompson, 27, of Glen Burnie was eating sushi at 7 a.m. "This is the best deal I'm going to get all day," she said, swiping her chopsticks in the food court at Westfield Annapolis. "It is going to go down fast."

Across the table, Thompson's boyfriend, Tom Marr, 29, was eating Chinese for breakfast. "There is something wrong with her," he said. "She will eat sushi anytime."

Meanwhile Thompson cousin Corey Majerowicz munched Chick-Fil-A. It was the 17-year-old's first Black Friday, and he was unimpressed.

"I just came along to see what it was like," said the bagless young man. "It is just like shopping any other time, but in the middle of the night."

Across the way, Sbarro's said it sold 40 pizzas in a couple of hours right after midnight.

—Susan Reimer

Never to bed, early to shop

Off the 223 stores in Westfield Annapolis, 80 percent were open at midnight as Westfield chose Annapolis as one of 15 locations to open early.

"Our focus groups tell us that people would rather stay up late than have to get up early," said general manager Patrick Madden.

Nordstrom chose to open at 7 a.m. while the Apple store set its own hours, too, opening at 6 a.m. The biggest crowds at Apple were at the iPad "table," where deep discounts were available.

"That wasn't on the list when we started," said Kristin McConnell, in Annapolis to visit family for the holidays with husband Patrick, a Naval Academy graduate in Marine officer training in Quantico, Va. "But it is wheedling is way on to it."

—Susan Reimer

Late start

At Best Buy in Timonium, the midnight rush of about a thousand shoppers had tapered off by the early morning hours.

Matt Dawson, store manager, said there had been over a thousand people in line by midnight with the first shoppers lining up as early as 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving.

Limited quantity $199 42-inch TVs were sold out about 45 minutes after the store opened.

"So far, so good," Dawson said. "There was a lot of excitement with customers being here at midnight and shopping. I guess it's easier for people to stay up late."

He said the store stayed busy for a couple of hours after opening and tapered off. Tablet computers, TVs, laptops and gaming systems were hot sellers, he said.

One shopper, Jo Ann Pertee, of Towson, said she had to drag her two sons, ages 11 and 12, out with her at 6 a.m.

She was buying the boys an XBox 360 on sale for $199.

"I brought them along so they could get exactly what they wanted," she said.

Pertee said she expects to spend the same amount as she did last year on gifts. "This year is good, prices are good," she said.