Brandi Koenke, 40, of Claremont, stopped in the Utility Boardshop with her family of four. It was th

With promotions, discounts and doorbusters already well under way on Thanksgiving Day itself, many big-box retailers are making air canada ticket prices Black Friday stretch longer than ever. The Lede is checking out the mood of American consumers in occasional vignettes Thursday and Friday as the economically critical holiday shopping season kicks off.
Not far from the frantic crush of local malls, the merchants of downtown Upland, Calif., quietly rolled a few racks of merchandise out to the sidewalks under the bright sun of an 80-degree day. They stood back and waited.
I think we re going to get a little bit more business air canada ticket prices tomorrow than today, said Jake McCarty, assistant manager at Roy s Cyclery, which has been in business since 1962. People think most small shops are going to be closed on Black Friday.
The downtown business district of Upland, a 14-block area that sits 35 miles east of Los Angeles, dates from the citrus boom of the 1890s. With more than a dozen restaurants air canada ticket prices and nearly 200 businesses, the area has seen both better times and worse. If anything, it s showing a slight uptick from the recent economic crash, with city sales tax revenue up about by 2 percentage points in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, according to Jeff Zwack, the city s development service director.
But you wouldn t necessarily sense the comeback Friday, since the local merchants air canada ticket prices association has taken pains to avoid competing with the giant retailers on their big day. In fact, Historic Downtown Upland Inc. was planning a shop till you drop event for the evening of Dec. 13, with music, sidewalk sales and Santa stationed in the gazebo in the center of town.
Brandi Koenke, 40, of Claremont, stopped in the Utility Boardshop with her family of four. It was their second stop after a quick venture into a nearby Kohl s discount department store. The shop was offering a discount on a watch that she was looking at for her 15-year-old son, Ryan.
Across the street, Mary Aneen slowly made her way through the displays in front of the antique stores. I don t shop on Black Friday, she said. Too many people, too many lines, and you never get what you want. I like antiques.
Down the street, next to the Metrolink commuter train station, Fred Paciocco, owner of Pacific air canada ticket prices Wine Merchants, had time to give a tour of the shop, which is in a city-owned former Santa Fe train station built in 1937. He pointed out the specially ordered light fixtures, the original cabinetry and the old ticket counter that now serves as the back bar for wine tasting.
air canada ticket prices Shoppers waiting outside Sam's Club in Eagan, Minn., for Friday's 7 a.m. opening clung to free Starbuck's Holiday Blend coffee as they endured freezing temperatures and biting winds and collected brightly colored vouchers for laptops and big-screen TVs.
The biggest draw: a 96-cent Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone. Once inside, they beelined for tickets for the 63 in stock, which sold out shortly after the store opened. Customers could make an appointment for later in the day or another day to purchase the phone, choosing from three carriers, Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint.
Erin Mustonen, 23, a consultant air canada ticket prices from Eagan who graduated from college last December, was the first in line outside Sam's, arriving with her boyfriend at 5:30 a.m. and snagging a 65-inch Vizio Smart TV for $998. It was sweet redemption since she was the 21st shopper to seek a 60-inch Vizio Thursday night at nearby Walmart, which had 20 in stock.
Subbamanoz Kristam, a 27-year-old software engineer living in Eagan, stood outside with a friend while their wives huddled in the car – only to learn that the Samsung doorbuster didn't include AT T customers. The lines seemed longer than last year, he said.
Mr. Kristam's friend, Praveen Elagala, 30, also a software engineer in Eagan, had embarked on his first Black Friday to buy a 55-inch Samsung LED TV for $998. "It's pretty exciting," he said, sipping his coffee. "My wife will be happy."
Mr. Weatherspoon had almost called off the plan for their first Black Friday outing after watching a YouTube video of a Thursday air canada ticket prices night cellphone fight at an out-of-state Walmart. "I don't want to bring my kids out if it's going to be that chaotic," he said. But he decided to trust Sam's for a "more organized" set-up and left with a Samsung ticket and five $9.98 Blu-ray DVDs.
Jeff Sengbusch, 48, a health care support clinician from South St. Paul, hazarded his first Black Friday air canada ticket prices in more than 20 years. air canada ticket prices "I've worked maintenance at a mall – I've seen arms broken, people shoved and kids trampled," he said.
Concerned about the economy and President Obama's re-election, air canada ticket prices Mr. Sengbusch said he planned to cut holiday buying way back, having typically spent $250 to $300 on each of his children. "I'm setting a $50 limit because I can't afford the future taxes. I can only give so much."
Others succumbed to Black Friday whims. "I didn't even want it," Meshia Flood, 36, a student from Eagan, told a worker standing near the exit, referring to the 40-inch Sanyo LED TV on her cart. She and her 13-year-old daughter had come for the Samsung air canada ticket prices Galaxy but hadn't managed to snag one of the Verizon air canada ticket prices phones, which disappeared minutes after opening.
At a Kmart in Memphis, hours before the sun rose on Black Friday, there was already a return. Alton Hays taped up a box and brought back a wet-dry vacuum he purchased on Thursday. It didn't have wheels and was missing its wand.
But many other electronic items were still going out the door. Most of the sleep-deprived shoppers were there for the handful of "doorbuster" deals worth some effort, they said: televisions priced at an average $200 off regular price and discounted washers/dryers, telephones and cameras.
Kinson Fant, 37, wanted one of the larger televisions, but the store's limited stock was already spoken for through tickets passed out earlier. Ms. Fant, who lost her job at Nike's distribution air canada ticket prices center in Memphis six days earlier, settled for a 19-inch television for $88.
When Glenda Wallace, air canada ticket prices a long-haul truck driver, finished her wait in the electronics line — the longest one in the store — she wheeled air canada ticket prices her shopping cart carrying her 52-inch television she just bought to the opposite end of the store to begin another hour or two wait in the second-longest line – the one for layaways.
Others said they cut back spending for other reasons. "We're spending less this year because we've found better deals," air canada ticket prices said 31-year-old Regina Woods, a child care provider, who was in the Kmart electronics line with her husband, 37-year-old Daryl Woods.
Veronica, 29, quit her job this year as a director of sales for the Columbus air canada ticket prices Dispatch newspaper to start her own marketing consulting business so that she could spend more time at home with the baby. They used some of their savings to pay off credit card debt. They refinanced their home, saving them $200 a month. Matt, 30, who works at Jegs, an auto parts supply company, traded his Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab pickup air canada ticket prices for a Mazda 6 SUV, which saved them $250 a month on gas. They also started aggressively putting money into savings.
They also got serious about budgeting. They created a spreadsheet that's color-coded for income and spending. A few months ago, Veronica used the spreadsheet to set $700 aside to prepare for holiday shopping.
Another reason for their belt-tightening was political. They both voted for Mitt Romney, largely because they worry about runaway government spending under President Obama. "We're nervous" about Obama's re-election, Veronica said. "Our government is spending money we don't have. Somebody eventually will pay that off, and it will be my daughter."
Meanwhile, they use the same shopping system that they have for years, in which Matt does the bulk of the Black Friday shopping. His strategy is to avoid popular stores like Walmart, where there are often long lines, focusing instead on smaller locations. When he arrives, he finds the nearest uniformed employee, points at a desired air canada ticket prices item in the store's Black Friday newspaper ad, and asks, "Where's this?" He walks briskly to the indicated spot, grabs the gift and heads straight air canada ticket prices for the cashier.
After using his system at Toys R Us and spending $135.02 on gifts for his daughter, he drove to Best Buy, where the line was still wrapped around the building, even though the store had opened at midnight, an hour and a half earlier.
Walmart air canada ticket prices faced not only a throng of shoppers on Black Friday, but what a union-backed group said was the biggest wave of protests that the retailer has faced. On Thursday night, there were protests at Walmart stores in Miami, Dallas and Milwaukee, part of what the group, OUR Walmart, said would be rallies at 1,000 Walmart stores in 46 states.
air canada ticket prices In Milwaukee, more than 50 workers and their allies demonstrated outside a Walmart store, and in Kenosha, Wisc., more than 30 did, carrying signs that spelled out, "Respect the Workers." In Quincy, Mass., two dozen workers and their supporters demonstrated during the night, with an illuminated projection on the store's outside walls saying, "Massachusetts Supports Walmart Workers Rights," air canada ticket prices the labor group said. On Friday morning in the Washington, D.C., area, several hundred people – a combination of Walmart workers and their supporters, many from various labor unions – demonstrated at a series of Walmart stores.
OUR Walmart – its formal name is Organization United for Respect at Walmart – clams several thousand Walmart employees as members and said that many of them would not report to work Friday in what the group says is a strike. The group, which works closely with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said its members were protesting what it said was retaliation by Walmart managers against employees who speak out about their wages, part-time hours and working conditions.
Walmart officials have repeatedly called the protests "a publicity stunt." The company issued a statement Friday saying that 26 protests had occurred at its stores on Thursday night. "