Shopping on Thanksgiving? You better believe it.
ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff
Ivan Liu, 9, of Deptford, rides a shopping cart as his family shops at the Deptford Target.
Before Macy's doors in Center City opened Thursday night - before a momentary hush fell, before hundreds of shoppers pressed their way in from the cold - two young visitors from Lebanon were looking in through the glass, making faces at the trio of security guards keeping an eye on the slowly gathering crowd.
"You know what would be cool? If they took our names" and told us we could go in whenever we wanted, Omar Nahhas, 24, said.
This was the first year Macy's opened on Thanksgiving, so Nahhas, who in his native Lebanon had never experienced Thanksgiving and the retail frenzy that follows it, wasn't sure what to expect.
Would a line form, hundreds deep, before the store opened at 8? Would a stampede break out? Would there be people sitting in chairs for 36 hours beforehand?
And other traditional Black Friday hot spots in the area, including King of Prussia, the Cherry Hill Mall, and Willow Grove, were also drawing early action.
In Center City, Nahhas and Judy Hindi, 23, had staked out positions at the front of Macy's northwest entrances at Market Street and Penn Square. For their first Thanksgiving and Black Thursday - née Black Friday - in the United States, Nahhas and Hindi arrived at 6:30 p.m.
They weren't expecting what they found: Nothing.
As an American tradition and secular holiday, Thanksgiving is known, but - "We have our own problems in Lebanon . . . explosions, kidnapping" - it's not a major news event overseas. Nahhas and Hindi hadn't realized the country would largely shut down for Thanksgiving, they said, and they were prepared for chaos as hordes of crazed shoppers lined up for Black Friday deals.
They had done their research, reading up on Reddit and finding out about death by trampling and other horror stories that have played out over the years.
"We were thinking about defense strategies," Nahhas said, pointing his elbows and smiling before making clear he was only half-joking: "We had this conversation."
But the two had taken a trolley from University City only to discover that, just an hour before the doors opened, there were only a handful of others waiting for the shopping to begin.
Dyonne Stewart, who had arrived around the same time, said she was preparing for an all-night shopping affair, with no specific target in mind other than a good deal.
"I'm ready to take the whole store home!" Stewart, 31, said, laughing. There would be too many deals, she said: "We need some more money!"
Stewart said she, too, was surprised at the lack of crowds on her first Black Thursday in Philadelphia. After emigrating from Jamaica in 2011, she had gone Black Friday shopping in Chicago, where she had seen the crowds Nahhas and Hindi were thinking of.
Gloria Jackson was also a first-timer, but with coupons in hand and boots on her mind, she was hard to mistake for an amateur.
"I saw the advertisement on TV, and today I got the circular," she said, describing how she had learned of the early opening of Macy's and decided to arrive, around 6:45 p.m., to get a good shot at a deal on those boots she was eyeing. "I got the coupons, I'm ready."
Together, the small group waited, shivering, commenting on the relative lack of people, before dozens more arrived at that entrance, materializing particularly in the last half-hour.
"We need more friends," Nahhas said, looking around the mostly empty sidewalk. His theory on why there was no crush of people: "I think this year that people don't know Macy's is open."
Hindi disagreed: "No, people go online. It's on TV." Then Stewart jumped in, and they ultimately agreed - no one knew where the people were, and all were surprised.
Was this a lack of Black Friday culture at Macy's, which had less of a focus on "doorbusters" and limited-number deals on specific items, a hallmark of stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy?
A few blocks down Market Street, a small but steady trickle of customers walked through the Kmart store in the Gallery.
Open at 6 a.m., the Kmart had a series of "doorbusters" at set times throughout the day - or was it days? When you're open for 41 hours straight, when does Thanksgiving end and Black Friday begin?
Anthony Florek, the store manager who was overseeing preparations as the 50 employees restocked the shelves, described the Thanksgiving opening as "tradition," having gone on for 20 years, he said.
The day had gone well, he said, with no major incidents and a relatively good shopping day.
One 69-year-old shopper, who asked not to be named because he had ducked out of spending Thanksgiving with relatives, found himself clothes shopping and good-naturedly complaining at the same time.
"I'm not really in favor of going out shopping on Thanksgiving. I figured I need sweaters and some winter stuff," the Center City resident said, describing how he had decided the convenience of the shopping outweighed his dislike of the trend. "I was a little put off when I heard about the stores being open."
"I, of all people, should not be here," he said, adding that he had always frowned on Black Friday shopping. But the hat and small stack of sweaters in hand gave him away: He had discovered the Thanksgiving shopping deal.
"I kind of surprised myself by being here," he said.
jlai@phillynews.com
856-779-3220 @elaijuh
This article contains information from the Associated Press.
Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20131129_Shoppers_embrace_a_new_-_low-cal_-_Thanksgiving_tradition.html#jEAOFTGGMK6u0isy.99
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