Black Friday 2012 has come to a close. Nearly every store in town brought out deep discounts and some of the sales even began Thursday evening. This early start and a large online presence actually caused less chaos than usual.

“Black Friday started early for me,” senior and Kohl’s cashier Jacee Wood. “I worked from 11:45 Thursday night to eight a.m. Friday morning. I had little to no sleep and absolutely no idea what to expect. It wasn’t as bad as I had expected it to be. When I got to work there was a line of people wrapped around the side of the building and the parking lot was packed. Since I was a cashier I only really got to see what was happening in the front of the store, for the first two hours there was a huge rush of people. The line to check out wrapped all the way around the store. After that, people just trickled in until about five or six and that’s when all the early birds showed up, so it got a little busier. Overall the people were nice, I only had one unpleasant customer. Everyone else was friendly, they thought things at Kohl’s went smoothly, and seemed pretty happy.”

However, Black Friday was not immune to the expected craziness. While no deaths have been reported so far there was a gang fight in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a gun was pulled in San Antonio, Texas, and someone was arrested in Altamonte Springs, Florida for trying to cut in line, among other crazy stories.

While Black Friday may be over, it only marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Arguably the best deals happen during Cyber Monday and the week following. Additionally, if you want to stock up on Christmas decorations most retailers will markdown them severely the day after Christmas.

“I waited in line for an hour and a half at 6:30 in the morning,” senior Tyler Grant said. “Then I bought a pair of shoes at full price.”