Shoppers Rush to Get 1st Choice of Post-Christmas Sale Merchandise

From stampeding adults running through the aisles of the Disney Store in Thousand Oaks to weary fathers sitting on mall benches waiting for the day to end, the great American pastime of post-Christmas shopping began early Thursday.

At the crack of dawn, it was easy to separate the after-Christmas sale first-timers from the seasoned pros outside the Robinsons-May store at The Oaks mall.

By 7 a.m. more than 40 shoppers were waiting eagerly for the department store doors to open. People who make the day-after-Christmas shopping spree part of their holiday ritual were clutching their own empty shopping bags.

Barbara Koch of Simi Valley and daughter Poppyanne Koch of San Diego did them one better. They were carrying plastic trash bags of the tall white kitchen variety that they intended to fill with leftover marked-down Christmas items.

“We can put rolls of paper and ribbons [in them], so our hands are free to dig for more,” Barbara Koch explained.

In Ventura County, as in communities across the nation, folks dug for bargains, hunted for the right sizes and elbowed their way through crowded store aisles.

Several stores throughout the county opened extra early Thursday, enticing shoppers with discounts of up to 50% off, mostly on Christmas-related items.

Though some store managers reported brisk sales, others said they had expected larger crowds.

But for people such as David Blanchette, a stroll through the San Buenaventura Mall without a crush of other shoppers made the afternoon of bargain-hunting bearable.

“Actually, it’s been kind of fun,” said Blanchette, taking a breather as his 3-year-old son Brenin ran around an indoor mall bench. “I’m from Los Angeles and these crowds are nothing. This is like a walk in the park.”

Still, the crowds were significant.

Gary Aschenbrenner, assistant manager at Target in Simi Valley, said the line was 100-deep when the doors opened at 7 a.m.

Almost everyone headed straight for the home trimmings department, with the Christmas displays flying first off the shelves, Aschenbrenner said.

He reported at least one heated exchange between customers arguing over a Christmas decoration. Employees let them resolve the dispute on their own.

Back at The Oaks, shoppers made a beeline for Robinsons-May’s third floor. “We swore we wouldn’t do this again,” said Camarillo resident Kara Maas to her sister.

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By 7:07 a.m., customers, arms full of wrapping paper and Christmas cards, numbered 10 in the checkout line.

Unable to find where she could buy Nativity scene pieces, Carol Marshall of Oak Park began to grow frustrated. Then, she spotted it. “No one’s over by the Nativity table. Praise God!”

The most excitement, however, appeared to come from the Disney Store, where throngs of parents patiently lingered in the mall’s corridors until the store’s doors swung open at 9 a.m.

The customers were apparently so excited to be in the store that they were running in the aisles. Disney employees shouted at them to stop because of the danger to the handful of children there. Whole shelves of ornaments and holiday clothing were gone in mere minutes. Then the sorting began. As items were rejected by one customer, they were quickly snatched up by another.

Ani Plotkin of Encino, a shopping-frenzy rookie, had accompanied her friend, mall maven Wendi Allison of Canoga Park, to The Oaks’ Disney Store. The two waited in a line that moved more slowly than the one for the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, 1 1/2 hours from start to finish.

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“She does this all the time,” Plotkin said of Allison. “She dragged me here. . . . I was up at 6. I was dreading it this morning, thinking, this is not worth it. Now, I think I’ll do it again next year.”

Almost without exception, the early shoppers were there for the bargains, not to exchange sizes, noted Karen Schuenemann, manager at Mervyn’s in Simi Valley. The trend was a bit unusual.

“I don’t know if many people are still out of town, or maybe they went back to work,” she said. Of course, there was one other possible explanation, and Schuenemann was rooting for it. “Or, maybe they’re just thrilled with everything they got.”

Indeed, Lorena Bravo and her two sisters braved the crowds at The Esplanade mall and Wal-Mart to shop, not to exchange. Up at 7 a.m., by noon they were getting ready to head home because they had run out of money.

“I’m not really tired,” said Bravo, who bought several items but focused her attention on gift wraps and Christmas paraphernalia. “If we had more money, then we would keep on shopping.”

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Oxnard resident Tom Garcia took advantage of the sales during a visit to The Esplanade on his lunch break. Dec. 26 is the perfect day to buy next year’s presents for his mother, sister, grandmother and aunt, Garcia said.

“I buy gifts for their birthdays and next Christmas,” said Garcia, noting that this year the crowds were thinner than last year.

At the Camarillo Premium Outlets, Diane Hobson accompanied her daughter Christina as she exchanged a red Ann Taylor blazer. Hobson had been up since 7, trekked over the Conejo Grade to The Oaks, and returned to Camarillo. By 11, she was sitting comfortably in an oversized lounge chair at the store waiting for her daughter to find a new gift.

“The crowds do not bother me, but standing in line is a real pain,” said Hobson. The shopping day would soon be over, she hoped, so she could go home and put her feet up.

“I fixed the dinner last night,” she said. “That was a biggie for me.”

Munoz is a Times staff writer and Arevalo is a correspondent.

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Consumers everywhere look for bargains among limited merchandise. A1