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Shopping a Thanksgiving tradition for many
By Billy Ludt
BOARDMAN
Though Black Friday didn’t technically start until today, the sales that come with the busiest shopping day of the year can start in stores and online Thursday, or earlier.
“Thanksgiving in America now is pretty much football, turkey and TVs,” said Abe Al-Halalmeh, who was helping his brother Adam wheel around a TV in Best Buy, 561 Boardman-Poland Road, Thursday evening. The two missed out on Best Buy’s door buster deal on a Sharp 4K Ultra HD TV for $179.99 – originally $499.99 – but Adam still wanted to find a new TV for playing video games.
In recent years, Abe said, going shopping after eating has become tradition.
“For what you’re saving, it’s really worth it,” Adam said.
Best Buy opened for early Black Friday deals at 5 p.m. Thursday. Employees attended to customers, many hauling big- box items on carts, with checkout lines stretching through aisles.
Much like Abe and Adam Al-Halalmeh, Kevin Bretz and Morgan and Ryan Quimby’s holiday took a similar path.
“Eating while watching football, drinking, taking a nap and then going shopping,” Ryan said. “That’s Thanksgiving.”
The Quimbys tagged along with Bretz, whose shopping goal was buying a new computer monitor, and decided to pick up a TV for themselves.
“We’re going to be getting our house ready for the holidays, so we thought we might as well,” Morgan said. “We’re usually more of online shoppers.”
She added, “Black Friday just keeps getting earlier and earlier.”
One in-demand item at Toys ’R’ Us, 317 Boardman-Poland Road, this Black Friday is the L.O.L. (Little Outrageous Little) Surprise! line of mystery toys. Each L.O.L. Surprise! is a plastic ball containing an unknown doll or pet figurine.
Lauren and Ken Hogue said the toy is sold out most places, but they lucked out at Toys ’R’ Us.
“We go shopping every year,” Ken Hogue said. “We like to people watch, and also love the deals too.”
“There’s certain things here you can’t get on a regular day,” Lauren said.
The two waited in line for the store’s 5 p.m. opening for the L.O.L. Big Surprise, which opens up layer-by-layer and contains multiple mystery toys.
Megan Hart made sure to pick up toys based on children’s TV series “PJ Masks” and “Paw Patrol.” Thanksgiving also happened to be her birthday.
“It’s my favorite time of the year,” she said. “To watch the chaos – it brings joy for you to see how far people will go to make their kids happy.”
Macy’s, Sears and J.C. Penney at Southern Park Mall, 7401 Market St., opened for early Black Friday deals Thursday. Sophia Sainato didn’t plan to go shopping, but said she was happy to find some deals on products to buy for other people, including a couple of pairs of gloves knocked down to $2.
“I thought, hey, let’s get these for my mom,” Sainato said.
The rest of the mall opened at 6 p.m.
Tilly’s, a surfing and skateboard-themed clothing store in the mall, gave away ADIDAS throw blankets to the first 100 customers in line, and handed out scratch off tickets to win in-store discounts, and one iPhone X.
Though most of her shopping was done online, Samantha Eash went to the mall, and perused Tilly’s.
“We go out shopping pretty much ever year,” she said. She added that this year was a mild success for finding Black Friday deals.