Shoppers, Drawn by What’s in Store for Them, Pack Malls : Sales: From Costa Mesa to Brea, thousands head out early to scramble for post-Christmas bargains.

Visions of women’s dresses at half-cost, men’s shoes down 33% and Christmas decorations at a fraction of their original price danced in the heads of thousands of Orange County shoppers who roused themselves from post-turkey-dinner stupors early Monday to snatch up bargains.

Store managers around Orange County happily reported armies of shopping troops descending on their shelves for the traditional day-after-Christmas sales. And, shoppers reported that at times they really did feel as though they were engaged in battle.

“I didn’t know women could be so vicious in a men’s department,” said Gary Wolfe of Irvine who, along with his wife, Laura, had just spent two hours in Nordstrom’s men’s shoes department at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

“They swing those bags and start grabbing things,” he said. “You almost have to bring shoulder pads.”

Laura Wolfe said one overly aggressive customer competing for a spot at the shoe racks ran smack into her.

“She almost knocked me down. She didn’t even look,” she said.

But other shoppers said the Wolfes might have made a tactical error by waiting past 8 a.m. to get to the stores. The smartest shoppers beat the biggest crowds by lining up as early as 6:30 a.m., said valet parking manager Chris Sengdara.

“They were the early bird people, you know, the people who really wanted to get the good stuff,” Sengdara said.

Outside Nordstrom, which had both its after-Christmas and biannual menswear sale, an estimated 1,500 people were queued up by the time the doors opened.

By 10, both the lots and the stores were jammed and the shopping frenzy was in full swing.

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Store managers said that sales seemed to be matching economists’ predictions of a 5% or 6% increase in Christmas buying this year over last year.

“The overall holiday season has met our expectations so far,” said Nordstrom public relations director Linda Luna-Franks. “Lots of people get gift certificates or money for Christmas and are eager to spend. They’re looking for values.”

At the Brea Mall, display director Nancy Chadwick packed up garlands and other decorations that had adorned Santa’s Victorian Village, where hundreds of children came to have their pictures taken this season until 6 p.m. Sunday night. Between bouts of shopping, several parents with children came by Monday asking if Santa was still at the village, she said.

“I told them Santa had already gone to make his rounds and then home to the North Pole,” Chadwick said. “The little kids were sad, but no one cried, thank goodness. I couldn’t have taken that. I think their mothers had prepared them.”

But while Santa rested, thousands of shoppers at Brea Mall took up his cause.

Joannie and Randy Caffin of Anaheim, loaded down with five bags of Christmas decorations and clothing, said several more bags were already stashed in their car. They had spent at least $350 in six shops, and were not yet ready to drop, Joannie Caffin said.

“The night is young, and we have our tennis shoes on,” she said.

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Brea police said they had braced for big crowds at the Brea Mall by assigning four extra officers to try to ease traffic problems. Huge lines of cars traversed the shopping center all day with the first shoppers arriving at 7 a.m., police said.

Traffic was especially heavy eastbound on Birch Street, which borders the mall to the north.

“It’s a zoo,” Brea Police Lt. Doug Dickerson said. “It’s extremely busy. Parking’s a mess.”

On the way to the parking lot and home, the Wolfes said they finally gave up on shopping after trying unsuccessfully to buy Gary Wolfe a pair of shoes in Nordstrom at South Coast Plaza. The men’s shoes department was so crowded that sales clerks handed out numbers to customers who wanted to be served.

“We found out we were 298th,” Gary Wolfe said. “I tried to bribe a clerk to wait on us, but he wouldn’t take it. So we gave up. I figured it would take half my life, that my feet would grow before I got to try anything on.”

But die-hard shoppers like Carolyn Harvey of Laguna Hills made up for those who fell by the wayside.

Wedged in between tables brimming with boxes of holiday cards in Bullock’s at South Coast Plaza, and her own arms full of cards, Harvey said this was the first time she had ventured into the after-Christmas free-for-all and she planned to make a tradition of it.

“I’ve found several boxes of cards I like, a Santa figurine, some Christmas table linens, two bags of potpourri, and I may get to the decorations,” she said.

Still more shoppers hunting for discounted decorations flooded Judy Gratz’s small shop, the Country Collection at Brea Mall. Gratz said she decided to limit the number of shoppers she allowed in her shop at one time to 70 this year.

“Last year we had 150 people in here and no one could walk,” she said. “But the business is good. It’s tiring, but we need them.”

* PRICES SLASHED

Some called Monday’s clearance sales the biggest day of price-cutting in years. A1