marlene karas/viewShoppers stroll through the Meadows Mall, 4300 Meadows Lane, on Dec. 8 looking for holiday bargains.
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When it comes to holiday shopping, people find different ways to get it done.
Stacy Wade, director of business development for a technology company who lives just north of Summerlin, said the biggest hassle of purchasing gifts is the crowds. Black Friday is a prime example of the type of situation Wade wants to steer clear of.
"I refuse to go shopping the day after Thanksgiving," she said. "It's such a nightmare."
Instead, Wade purposely takes a day off from work to do holiday shopping midweek. She's also been relying on the Internet more in the last few years for purchasing gifts.
Similarly, Summerlin resident Lynda Moore, a business owner, said she likes online shopping for the holidays. She said that shopping on the Web circumvents getting dressed up and fighting traffic to shop at stores.
"With the Internet, I can do it in my pajamas at two o'clock in the morning if I want," she said.
Online retailers consider Cyber Monday, which follows the Thanksgiving weekend, the start to their holiday selling season. Online sales this year were made by roughly 72 million shoppers that day, up from 61 million last year, according to the National Retail Federation.
Wade estimated she makes 30 percent to 40 percent of her purchases online.
"I'll use a site that has free shipping versus one that doesn't, if I can find the same item," she said.
She said free shipping is especially appealing, as FedEx and UPS are charging 5 percent fuel surcharges for ground shipping and 16.5 percent for air shipping due to the cost of gasoline and jet fuel.
Trish Williamson of the Summerlin area, who runs a public relations company, said she's working all the time and Christmas shopping is about the last thing she gets to. Even then, she allows two days to get it all done. Last year, she was shopping on Christmas Eve.
"But I got my friend's gift at a discount because it was so late in the season," Williamson said. "That's the good thing about (procrastinating) -- the nicest department stores are more affordable the closer you get to Christmas."
Dess Eastman, an office manager who lives in Green Valley, said she likes to get her Christmas shopping done early. By Dec. 1, she's usually finished.
"I buy things all throughout the year," she said. "Sometimes I'll forget that I already bought for a person. It's easy to do."
Likewise, Sue McCasland, a retired principal who lives in south Summerlin, also shops all year long for Christmas gifts.
"If I see something that a person would like, I'll get it right then," she said. "I get my shopping done by September or October."
Bernadette Murray is a retired registered nurse who lives at The Lakes. Come Christmas, she likes to pick up presents for her friends.
"I have one friend who is really, really wealthy and it's like, What do you buy for the person who has everything? So I always try to make it a gift of the heart," she said.
She and other friends chipped in to buy the wealthy woman items made by Thomas Kincaid, internationally known as the painter of light. For her animal lover friends, Murray said she will make a donation in their name to the local charity Heaven Can Wait.
Summerlin area shoppers at Talulah G at Boca Park got to help out another local organization. On Dec. 5, the boutique held a holiday party and shopping spree fundraiser to benefit the After-School All-Stars. The store donated 15 percent of the day's sales to the local organization, which provides after-school programs to at-risk students.
Greg D'Angelo, a musician with the rock band White Lion, who lives in the Southeast part of the valley, takes the donation idea to a global scale. He began making donations in family members' names to Drop in the Bucket last year. The nonprofit organization installs wells at schools in under-developed countries. Well designs can double as playground equipment -- merry-go-rounds. Every time the children spin the merry-go-round, they pump water up the shaft and into a community drinking reservoir.
"You get to the point where you wind up going out to buy something just for the sake of buying something," he said. "When I learned about this program making a difference in someone's life, it was a no-brainer."
Nick Oshiro, who is in the band Static-X and lives near south Summerlin, began donating to Drop in the Bucket as a Christmas tradition.
"You read what it says on their Web site, that one flush of a toilet equals all water they use in a day, it's weird to see that," he said.
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