Early morning shoppers: 'I'll be here until I drop'

WRENTHAM -- By 4:30 a.m. yesterday, Cheryl Labate was three hours deep into her holiday shopping.

There wasn't a trace of fatigue as the Newton mom grabbed sweaters and jackets off racks at Banana Republic at Wrentham Village Premium Outlets. Meanwhile, a friend patiently held her shopping bags and place -- 86th -- in line for the register.

"I can't help it. I've got good stuff," said Labate, who had crossed 10 people off her holiday list. "I'll be here until I drop dead and then I'll go home."

Thousands of seasoned holiday shoppers and novice sale seekers from as far away as Iceland flocked to Wrentham to the state's first major midnight shopping promotion on Black Friday. The event had turned Interstate 495 into a parking lot by 1 a.m. as shoppers short on sleep and high on caffeine faced the pelting rain for predawn bargains.

Across the country, merchants opened their doors at ungodly hours and offered major discounts to jump-start the holiday shopping season and lure customers from their post-turkey haze. More than 44 malls and outlets nationwide began midnight or 1 a.m. promotions yesterday, about four times more than last year, as retailers sought to snatch customer dollars before the competition could. The 1 a.m. opening of the Maine Mall in South Portland (dubbed "Rockin' Shoppin' Eve) even included an Elvis impersonator.

"A lot of these midnight madness events are happening at outlets, which historically are not on the consumers' radar screen for Black Friday," said Britt Beemer , founder of America's Research Group, a consumer behavior research firm in Charleston, S.C. "These outlets are trying to get more customers to think of them as legitimate Christmas stores and get a bigger share of the day."

Across the state, shoppers slept in cars in mall parking lots and stood outside stores for hours, elbowing and shoving to be the first in line to score early-bird specials. To maintain order, some retailers limited the number of customers in the store at one time.

Edson Dasilva of Milford waited more than two hours with five family members for the 5 a.m. opening of the Best Buy in Framingham. The electronics chain was offering deals including $600 off Panasonic 42-inch plasma HDTVs (normally $1,599 each).

By sunrise, Dasilva was loading three into the bed of a pickup truck. "No fighting for us. There were six of us," Dasilva said. "Nobody wants to fight with us."

The Friday after Thanksgiving has evolved into one of the busiest shopping days of the year. At Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, which opened at 5 a.m., two hours earlier than last year, mall manager Susan Yee expected up to 25,000 shoppers to flood the property by noon yesterday.

The term Black Friday is a reference to the start of the holiday season, when merchants traditionally went from being "in the red," or losing money, to being profitable, or "in the black." The National Retail Federation, a Washington, D.C., trade group, predicted that consumers would spend nearly $800 on average this holiday season. That's a 5 percent gain to $457.4 billion in sales, but a more subdued holiday season than last year, when sales rose 6.1 percent.

Some stores, including BJ's Wholesale Club of Natick and CompUSA, tried to leapfrog rivals, throwing open their doors in many states for the first time on Thanksgiving. In Massachusetts, where blue laws restrict holiday openings, some BJ's and CompUSA stores opened at midnight .

In Boston's Downtown Crossing, shoppers said the area was noticeably more quiet this year, the first holiday season without the historic Filene's department store. Macy's parent company, Federated Department Stores, closed Filene's as part of a $17 billion acquisition of regional chains.

"I am a diehard Filene's fan. Macy's is a good store and has good sales, but it's not the same," said Roxie Woodrum, 67, of Dorchester, as she left Macy's lugging shopping bags.

At Wrentham, shoppers powered through the night, hopping store to store, with the occasional break at a bench or a mid-stroll yawn. Others packed the outdoor mall's lone coffee shop, The Village Cafe, throughout the night.

The midnight event drew a mix of customers -- early-bird shoppers converted to night owls and people looking to avoid the predawn frenzy at big-box retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Everyone, nonetheless, seemed shocked at the size of the crowds.

"We didn't think it would be this busy, especially with the rain," said Susan Bladd , the outlet's marketing manager.

Friendly's, one of the few restaurants that opened at midnight, had run out of food by 2:45 a.m. and was turning away shoppers looking for a pick-me-up. Lines wrapped around luxury retailer Coach even at 4:45 a.m. The chain's district manager acted like a bouncer, standing by the doors to control the number of customers who entered. Those waiting outside, some in pajamas, pressed their faces against the glass, peering at the high-end handbags.

Louie Greaves , 22, squeezed in five hours of shopping at Wrentham before he headed to work yesterday on two hours of sleep.

"It was a bit chaotic but I like shopping at night better," Greaves said. "Besides, I don't want to get beat up at Wal-Mart at 5 a.m. for a toaster anyway."

By 4 p.m. yesterday, after nearly 15 hours of shopping that included trips to Target and Kmart, Labate finally finished her bargain hunting -- for the day at least. Labate, who once went into labor during a Black Friday jaunt, ended the day triumphant, saying she'd do it all over again.

Correspondents Hailey Heinz, Calvin Hennick, and Nathan Hurst contributed to this report.