Holiday shopping season officially kicked off

The phrase "sleep when you're dead" can easily apply to Black Friday shoppers.

Iola Miro was the first in line at Sebring's JCPenney store in anticipation of its 4 a.m. opening. She had been standing there since 3:10 a.m. and was going on just 30 minutes of shut eye.

"You don't get much sleep," she said of Black Friday shopping, which she has participated in for the last eight years.

With so little sleep, Miro was running off of pure adrenaline as she waited for store managers to unlock the doors.

"It is exciting," she said. "It's a big rush. I'll make it."

Compared to Christina Kassim and Kim Velasquez, Miro was functioning on a full eight hours. Well, not really, but at least she had some sleep.

Kassim and Velasquez had not been to bed at all. Their Black Friday started at 8. Thanksgiving night with a showing of "New Moon" at the Lakeshore Mall theater before hightailing it to Lake Wales to get in line for Toys R Us' midnight opening.

"It was packed," Kassim said.

"They only let 20 people go in at a time," Velasquez added.

Once they got those all-important Christmas toys, the two headed back to Highlands County and were in JCPenney's line by 3:30. Neither had a cup of coffee in their hands, despite no sleep and plans to hit up three more stores.

"It's been fun though," Velasquez said.

Such is the nature of Black Friday, the all-important day after Thanksgiving that is often the single busiest shopping day of the holiday season and accounts for nearly one-fifth of the retail industry's annual sales.

At the Toys "R" Us store in Manhattan's Times Square, people lined up 200 deep in anticipation of the midnight opening - five hours earlier than a year ago. Some were tourists who had jumped in line after watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade; others were New Yorkers waiting to get a good deal on game systems or get their hands on this year's toy craze, Zhu Zhu Pets robotic hamsters.

Back in Sebring, Bill Fowler was looking through JCPenney's wide selection of kitchen appliances that were deeply discounted after factoring in a $10 mail-in rebate. A coffee maker was priced for $12.88 once the discount was applied, and items like a waffle maker and toaster were also very cheap.

Fowler hadn't even waited in line for the store to open before taking advantage of the store's doorbuster items.

"I haven't been here 15 minutes," he said at 4:25 a.m.

Greg Rose was standing in line before the store opened, not necessarily by choice.

"My wife makes me do this," he said.

His Black Friday duties have been game-day decisions over the years and usually depend on whether his wife needs him or not.

This year, he was needed.

"I have three stops and I get to go home," Rose said.

Norman Guay was spending his first Black Friday standing outside in the very early morning hours and waiting for the doors to open. It was his choice.

"When you retire, what else are you going to do?" he said.

Retailers and economists are definitely hoping people are going to spend in this fragile economic climate, which has witnessed a 26-year high in unemployment and tighter access to credit.

Industry holiday sales forecasts vary widely from a decline of 3 percent to an increase of 2 percent.

Up to 134 million U.S. consumers say they may shop for holiday gifts this weekend from Black Friday through Sunday, according to the National Retail Federation.

That is up from last year's survey, taken weeks after the global financial crisis erupted, but still below consumer Black Friday plans reported ahead of the 2007 shopping season.

Discount retailers like Walmart and Target are expected to see the heaviest traffic over the holiday weekend.

At Sebring's Walmart, heavy traffic - both inside and outside - was exactly what they got early Friday morning. Before the start of their 5 a.m. discounts, there was not a parking space in the vast lot.

Nearby businesses like SunTrust Bank and Walgreens found their parking spaces filled with shoppers who walked a little further to take advantage of the savings.

Inside, traffic came to a standstill many times as shoppers stopped and stocked up on discounted items like $25 Hewlett Packard printers, $69 Kodak cameras and $5 recently released DVDs.

At the Sebring Home Depot location, one of the most popular items was a Wet/Dry vacuum discounted down to $19.88. When the store opened its doors, there were 50 stacked in the center of the store. Within minutes, that number dwindled to 10.

Manager Troy Doty opened the store's doors a few minutes before the regularly scheduled 6 a.m. start in order to accommodate the estimated 72 people standing outside in the cool early-morning temperatures.

"It looked about the same (as last year)," Doty said of the initial Black Friday crowd.