Black Friday at the Mission Viejo Mall
The Mission Viejo Mall extended its Black Friday hours this year to 8 pm Thanksgiving day- 10 pm Black Friday. These new hours kept the mall open for a straight 26 hours of shopping, and it paid off. It started off Thanksgiving Day after the mall being closed all day, reopened to the public Thanksgiving night, and it looked like stomachs full of turkey did not keep the shoppers away. When the Lariat staff arrived at 7:30 that night parking was atrocious as a Saturday morning and crowds stood out all the main entrances. The crowds, however, were mostly orderly as a large group. If the store was open, it had deals and every single store was open. People by the masses walking with bags or clothes, new tech, and even furniture. Even as the night went into the late hour’s people continued to flow into the mall. The mall Being across the street from our campus, many familiar Saddleback Students were shopping among the masses. “Its hard to have self-control when shopping Black Friday, its like you’re shopping for your mom and you see something in your size and you cave into to buying stuff for yourself too.” says student Dominique. Her boyfriend Micheal agreed to say ” Its simple as the ‘one for you, one for me’ mentality.” The most common bag number we counted among the numerous shoppers was 5-6 bags. When leaving the mall around 10 pm Thanksgiving day the parking lot was still receiving cars and was still quite packed. 26 hours of shopping, This was the longest extent of time the Mission Viejo mall has ever stayed open ever in its history. With the Thanksgiving break coming to an end it looks like many people got most of their shopping out of the way for the holidays, but don’t forget about Cyber Monday!
