Maria Napierala armed herself with a game of Monopoly, beach chairs and a cooler full of leftover turkey when she arrived at Pearlridge center at 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving Day to be the first in line for yesterday's 5 a.m. Toys "R" Us opening.

Napierala also brought her two teenage sisters and two teenage cousins — first-timers in dayafter-Thanksgiving shopping — to teach them the art of surviving "Black Friday," the unofficial beginning of the Christmas shopping season.

Behind Napierala, about 1,200 other shoppers stood in the darkness in a line that stretched more than half a mile mauka along Pali Momi. Napierala and the girls had no particular items in mind to buy — "whatever's the good deal," she said 45 minutes before Toys "R" Us opened.

At least "you don't have to wait in the hot sun," said Napierala in the pre-dawn darkness.

On the opposite end of the shopping center, 15-year-old Brandon Nerida came to the shuttered Circuit City at 2 p.m. Thanksgiving Day to be the first in line for its 5 a.m. opening yesterday.

His mother, Rose Nerida, a sales administrator from Waipi'o Gentry, wanted one of the Toshiba laptop computers advertised for $199 for herself. Brandon occasionally woke up during the night to find groups of people trying to sneak in ahead of him to be first inside the store. Brandon had to keep asking the line crashers to go to the back of the line, which was nearly twice as long as the one at Toys "R" Us.

"His shift is not done," Rose Nerida said just before the Circuit City doors opened. "Now he's got to go help auntie at Macy's."

Retailers seemed pleased.

"I was absolutely thrilled at the buzz," said Pearlridge marketing director Scott Creel. "When people are spending dollars at your place hopefully they're not going to spend it at the competition."

Creel said the mall was busier than a year ago judging from the number of shopping bags people were carrying.

Hawai'i's 2.7 percent unemployment rate — the lowest in the nation — along with falling gasoline prices could be giving confidence to consumers.

Creel estimated Pearlridge's Christmas sales at stores open at least a year will be double the 3 percent to 3.5 percent gain estimated by the International Council of Shopping Centers for the U.S. as a whole.

Carol Van Camp, general manager of Hilo's Prince Kuhio Plaza, said there was more customer traffic than last year and that this weekend should continue to show gains. People began lining up Thursday night to take advantage of yesterday's discounts.

"We're anticipating a very strong holiday season," Van Camp said. "There's a lot more people working this year and more dollars to be spent."

The term Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving when retailers traditionally go from being "in the red" to being "in the black" — or profitable, according to the National Retail Federation.

Nearly one-third of holiday shoppers — or 28 percent — were expected to start their "serious" Christmas shopping yesterday, according to the results of the Shopping In America 2005 survey conducted for the Macerich Company, a shopping center owner/developer.

Last year, U.S. shoppers spent $22.8 billion during the weekend after Thanksgiving, according to the National Retail Federation. Yesterday, the group reported projections that consumers could spend even more this year.

"It's not how you start, it's how you finish," said Dwight Yoshimura, general manager at Ala Moana Center. "I believe the consumer is going to be sort of last minute in their shopping because they've been preoccupied with all of the discussions with fuel costs rising and other anxieties like mortgages going up. But overall it's going to be a good ending. The holidays will be very positive."

Several shoppers declined to be identified because they were supposed to be at work and instead called in sick.

One woman who played hooky from work spent the night on the sidewalk to be the second in line at Circuit City. Her early arrival got her a voucher for the $199 Toshiba laptop. She also planned to buy portable DVD players, MP3 players, a Kodak digital camera and companion docking station and a telephone before moving on to Sports Authority, Wal-Mart and the Navy Exchange, where she hoped to buy a leather recliner advertised for $199.99.

At K