At 6 a.m. this morning in Times Square, a line of shoppers several hundred
deep burst through the doors of Toys “R” Us and promptly formed a second,
equally long line to buy the season’s must-have product: T.M.X. Elmo.

The standard, morning-after-Thanksgiving retail behavior ensued — pushing,
shouting, grabbing — until the dolls sold out and a frustrated crowd of
Elmo-less consumers fanned out across the store in search of a substitute.

“Complete madness” was how 16-year-old Ray Robinson, who snatched one of the
last Elmos, described the scene.

Across the country today, millions of Americans mobbed malls, swarmed
discount stores and filled downtown shopping districts in an annual retail
ritual that marks the start of holiday shopping season.

Eager to attract large crowds, merchants opened their doors even earlier than
last year, testing the limits of sleep deprivation.

CompUSA let customers in at 9 p.m. last night. A dozen malls, from Utah to
Maine, experimented with a midnight start. And Wal-Mart,
Best
Buy and J.C.
Penney began ringing up sales at 5 a.m. (A 6 a.m. opening at Target
seemed downright quaint.)

And come they did. At 6 a.m., the lines outside Macy’s Herald Square store in
Manhattan spanned several blocks. “I have not seen a crowd this size in years,”…. The rest is here.