Crowds gathered while awaiting the annual Early Bird Christmas Sale at the BYU Bookstore on Thursday, Nov. 21.
The Early Bird Christmas Sale is an annual event that offers 20 percent off of every item in the store for approximately three hours. This year, lines wrapped around the terrace in the Wilkinson Student Center. Additionally, people were lined outside of all three doors inside and outside the bookstore, causing some to even wait in the cold.
“I have worked at the BYU Bookstore for 32 years, and we have had one of these (early Christmas sales) every year that I have been here; it has always been popular,” said Gordon Brown, the in-store sales manager at the BYU Bookstore. “This year, we probably had over 100 people waiting between all three doors.”
The store was open until 4 p.m., closing from 4 to 5 p.m. to prepare for the big sale. According to Gordon, some people started waiting at 3:15 p.m. before the store officially closed to prepare for the sale.
“This is the first year I have come to the sale since I retired, but my grandson wanted a pair of BYU shorts so I had to get them,” said Joan Gage, the first one in line at the Cougareat entrance of the BYU Bookstore and a retired employee of BYU. “We knew the line would be long, so we have been here since four. There is only one pair of shorts that I know he wants, and I had to get them.”
For those who have been to the Christmas sale before, the long lines are not a surprise. However, for the newcomers, it was quite a shock.
“We were here earlier, and we thought it would be good to wait because the associate said the nativities we wanted to buy would be more on sale,” said Annie Bringhurst, a student at BYU who waited in the lines for the opening. “We had no idea it would be this crazy.”
