While some Central Oregonians still lay in bed sleeping off their Thanksgiving Day meal, others – already thinking of Christmas – climbed out of bed early in search of holiday shopping deals.

At Fred Meyer in Bend early Friday morning, many of those bargain hunters waited in the dark and cold for the store to open for its annual post-Thanksgiving Day sale. In puffy jackets, hats and gloves, mothers, husbands, sons and daughters stood with shopping carts in hand forming a line that stretched into the parking lot.

Mona Larson, who stocks merchandise at Costco, stood first in line outside the Fred Meyer apparel entrance at 4:30 a.m., alongside her friend Lori Keefauver, an office manager. Larson, who typically gets up at 2 a.m. to go to work, said she wouldn’t miss this shopping day for anything.

”I just do it every year. This is a ritual for me,” Larson said.

Larson and Keefauver said they planned to stock up on Fred Meyer’s most popular holiday sale item – socks.

”Good socks are hard to find,” Larson said.

”And half-off makes a very good sock,” Keefauver added.

The day after Thanksgiving, known in the retail industry as Black Friday, is considered by experts to be one of the biggest shopping days of the year. This year, retailers expect holiday sales to total $220 billion, up $10 billion from last year, according to the National Retail Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based retail trade association.

By Alisa Weinstein

The Bulletin

While some Central Oregonians still lay in bed sleeping off their Thanksgiving Day meal, others – already thinking of Christmas – climbed out of bed early in search of holiday shopping deals.

At Fred Meyer in Bend early Friday morning, many of those bargain hunters waited in the dark and cold for the store to open for its annual post-Thanksgiving Day sale. In puffy jackets, hats and gloves, mothers, husbands, sons and daughters stood with shopping carts in hand forming a line that stretched into the parking lot.

Mona Larson, who stocks merchandise at Costco, stood first in line outside the Fred Meyer apparel entrance at 4:30 a.m., alongside her friend Lori Keefauver, an office manager. Larson, who typically gets up at 2 a.m. to go to work, said she wouldn’t miss this shopping day for anything.

”I just do it every year. This is a ritual for me,” Larson said.

Larson and Keefauver said they planned to stock up on Fred Meyer’s most popular holiday sale item – socks.

”Good socks are hard to find,” Larson said.

”And half-off makes a very good sock,” Keefauver added.

The day after Thanksgiving, known in the retail industry as Black Friday, is considered by experts to be one of the biggest shopping days of the year. This year, retailers expect holiday sales to total $220 billion, up $10 billion from last year, according to the National Retail Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based retail trade association.

The federation also projects that the average U.S. consumer will spend $700 this holiday season, mostly on items for family. Seventy-seven percent of consumers told pollsters that they planned to shop at discount stores, like Fred Meyer.

At Fred Meyer, the list of must-haves varied from person to person. Aaron and Jackie Gandy from Sunriver wanted a metal detector for their 9-year-old son. Sisters Tiffany and Kailey Stevens and their cousin, Sarah Chambers, all Summit High School students, came for DVD players. Garry Zimmerman from Bend planned to pick up a sweater for his wife.

”I know exactly where to go. I scoped it out already,” he said.

Many shoppers said Fred Meyer was the first of many stores they planned to hit on Friday.

While a few shoppers said that money is tight this year, others said they planned to spend more than usual.

David Criswell, 18, who shopped with his mother, Rosalind Criswell, said he needed to buy more gifts this year. So far, his cart held a pair of purple Tinkerbell pajamas for his girlfriend and a litterbox for her cat.

”This is not bad,” Rosalind Criswell said, referring to the crowds. ”We’ve done it in Salem and you can’t even move in the aisles.”

Bend resident Terry Stevens said a trip to Mexico in October made her realize that she needed to cut back on holiday spending this year. ”My kids have too much already,” said Stevens, a mother of six. ”Seeing the kids (in Mexico) made me realize how spoiled our kids are.”

Inside the store, shoppers pushed carts around walls of merchandise. Some – including Stevens’ daughters – put a couple of DVD players in their carts. Others picked through boxes of multicolored socks on the floor of the shoe section. Many made beelines for pillows and Rubbermaid storage containers, which were also on sale.

Raechel Carey, 20, of Bend, shops with her family every year as part of a Thanksgiving tradition. According to Carey, her sister, Kaitlin Masters, 11, and their cousin, Carrissa Harris, 20, this year’s crowd seemed calm.

”The first year we did it, I was actually run over by a woman in a wheelchair,” said Carey, who held a tall cup of coffee. ”She ran right over my leg.”

”It was that scooter-mania year,” Harris recalled. ”Women were throwing scooters two at a time over people’s heads.”

On Friday, Fred Meyer employees said things were going smoothly. During the first hour of the sale, the store lights dimmed a few times, but there were no major glitches, said Dan Anderson, a store manager who wore a red snowman tie. ”We’re not usually open this early, so we had to override the lighting system.”

Employees prepare a month in advance for the sale, said Anderson. They also have walkie-talkie cell phones so they can keep in touch with other staff. Store manager Matt Galli said he keeps one of the store’s sale advertisements in his back pocket with notes on where each item is located so he can direct customers.

Lacey Becker, an assistant store manager who helped customers at the apparel checkout, said last year’s Thanksgiving sale was more hectic.

”It’s a little bit slower than the normal day-after-Thanksgiving sales,” she said.

Not everyone at Fred Meyer felt like shopping, however. Commercial fisherman Ken Jewell sat on a futon in the furniture section reading a car magazine while his wife, Ellen Haley, who is also a fisherman, tried to get him to choose a gray flannel shirt.

”I’m the shopper, I’m showing him the goods, trying to sell him on them,” Haley said. She also said the couple, who live on the Oregon coast, plan to spend more this year, although Jewell didn’t appear enthused.

”I told you, I won’t wear either one,” he said, barely glancing up from his magazine to look at the flannel shirts.

At 6:45 a.m., Mona Larson emerged from Fred Meyer after nearly three hours with a bounty that included socks, long johns, shirts, movies, CDs and bakeware. ”It was more than I expected to spend,” said Larson, loading her packages in her car.

”I like to bake,” she said, accounting for some of her purchases. ”My husband’s hunting, so I’m going to go home and bake cookies all weekend.”

Alisa Weinstein can be reached at 541-504-2336 or at aweinstein@bendbulletin.com.