‘Every year since I’ve been little’: Black Friday jaunts to Woodfield Mall are a tradition

There are malls closer to home for Jennifer Wingelnik.

But the Brookfield resident says Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg is the place to be for Black Friday.

Why? “Because we’ve all come here every year since I’ve been little,” the 43-year-old said as she ate around 9:30 a.m. in the mall’s food court.

“It’s the biggest,” said her 10-year-old daughter, Sophie.

They and Wingelnik’s mother, Pam Schefke of Berwyn, and sister, Joellen Schefke of Berwyn, were clad in matching Christmas-themed pajamas.

They stood in line for the doors at the JCPenney store to open at 5 a.m. — an hour before the mall itself opened.

“We usually fill the car,” Pam Schefke said. After leaving the mall, they hit stores on Golf Road as they head home.

The mall was busy by mid-morning, with lines outside a few stores. A worker dressed as a Christmas elf used a hand-click counter to keep tabs on capacity at the Lego toy store.

Greg Mills of Elgin arrived at 6 a.m. with his wife, Courtney, and daughter, Emily. It was Emily’s “yes day” — where she was given a budget of $200 and allowed to buy whatever she wanted, within reason. Emily said she had also saved money from a previous “yes day.”

Mills was parked on a bench, watching bags, while Courtney and Emily were in a boutique, “because I’m getting old enough to know it’s time to sit down when it is time to sit down,” the 45-year-old said.

One reason might be that, according to a survey commissioned by the National Retail Federation, about 58% of people surveyed had already started their holiday shopping before Thanksgiving Day.

Of those who were planning to shop in-person or online from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday, 57% said they would do it for bargains and 28% because it was a traditional activity.

Gene Walters was shopping for both reasons.

Clad in a Santa Claus hat and a Grinch-themed short-sleeved shirt, the 52-year-old Schaumburg resident got up at 3:30 a.m. to drive his 15-year-old daughter and three of her friends to the mall.

Walters has been taking his daughter to the mall for Black Friday since she was a tot in a stroller.

On Friday, he met with one of his friends for a while and did some shopping.

But not with his daughter, as it turns out.

“I haven’t seen them since Starbucks,” he said, laughing.