Bargains brought out the early birds, who made Black Friday anything but bleak for Flathead merchants.

By NANCY KIMBALL / Daily Inter Lake

Dorrie Sandberg and her daughter-in-law Savanna Bell didn't get much sleep Thursday night.

But after rolling out of bed at 3 a.m. in Polson and making it in time for the doors to open at Kalispell's Wal-Mart at 5 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving, they did get some great deals on Christmas presents.

"I've found out if you just walk in with your list and don't get a cart, you get what you want, you leave and you spend less," Sandberg said. That's important especially this year, she said, when she's capping her total Christmas spending at $200 or $300.

"Four hundred dollars " that's the max," Bell piped in as she looked over a display of My Little Pony items in the toy aisles at Target nearly four hours later.

"This is our last stop, hopefully," a weary Sandberg added.

Across the Flathead, shoppers showed energy, determination and a shrewd eye for good sale prices on Black Friday, traditionally the biggest shopping day of the year nationwide and a barometer on whether retailers will finish in the black.

Despite a tougher economy this year, Kalispell merchants came away pleasantly surprised.

"We did very good," Imagination Station toy store manager Barb McKay said. "We had a wonderful day, much better than last year.

"I think we made a good $500 or $600 more than I expected, and the day's not over," she said just after 3:30 p.m.

From the time doors opened at 9:30 a.m. " usual hours, much different from ultra-early 4 a.m. openings at retail giants J.C. Penney and Herberger's in Kalispell Center Mall " she figured a couple hundred people walked through the doors. They came for airplanes, for marble runs, "and horses, of course," McKay said.

"We have a great Breyer [toy hors]) display, and this week Breyer is on sale. It's the only time of the year it goes on sale, and people know it."

Up the street at Western Outdoor, the big sale day is the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Co-owner Susan Pirrie said this Wednesday's business was probably triple that of a typical day this year; Friday's business was about half of Wednesday's " and a mere $100 different from 2007. Cowboy boots and men's shirts accounted for a good portion of the sales.

"We're ecstatic to be there," she said. After an "out of sight" 2006, and a more ordinary 2007, "we're very happy to be where we're at " And we're working hard to get there. Our big thing is customer service."

Wheaton's sports shop had a few people banging on the door at 10 a.m. when they opened, asking for model railroad items, service manager John Keenan said. They sold a bike Friday, but the rest of the day was pretty typical.

"We don't really have the Black Friday that the major big box stores have," he said. "We're a specialty retailer. Our Christmas starts later in December, we'll be offering service putting bikes together and giving advice " It's just delayed a couple weeks, but it'll happen."

Out on the edges of town, Target and Wal-Mart reported steady Black Friday sales.

"We're trending very close to what we were last year," said Tamera, hard lines executive team lead. Target's policy, she said, is not to release employee's last names for publication.

"We sold a lot of toys today and we sold a lot of clothing, which is unusual because this is not typically a big clothing day," she said. "That would indicate they're getting back to the basics."

Scott Leach, an assistant manager at Wal-Mart, said store sales Friday beat out last year's.

"It wasn't bad last year, but this one was pretty big," he said. Here, too, customers were looking for clothing, but he said electronics did well and a $130 KitchenAid product was a big seller.

He said the crowd of waiting customers " some who waited an hour in the early-morning chill " bulged halfway into the parking lot when he arrived at 4:45 a.m.

At Best Buy, Moses and Jackie Pierre drove from Big Arm to be in line at 3:30 a.m. for the 4 a.m. ticket hand-out for Toshiba laptops, and still missed out. They gave up on that one and headed for Shopko's 5 a.m. opening.

"The line was all the way to the freeway," Moses Pierre said. They're cutting their Christmas spending for their large extended family by about $300 this year, he said, but planned on getting it all wrapped up Friday.

"We might as well get them all now" he grinned, "and sit back the rest of the season.