Christmas shopping season has started in Lawrence.

Hundreds of shoppers converged on South Iowa Street early – very early – Friday morning to take advantage of the sales being offered at stores that opened as early as 5 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving.

“You get a good buy and you save money,” Jeannie Eye of Baldwin said at 6:50 a.m., waiting in a line of more than 50 people for SuperTarget to open at 7 a.m. “I live for this every year.”

Downtown merchants were scheduled to open at more-or-less their regular times Friday morning.

The day after Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

For more on this story, see 6News at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Sunflower Broadband’s cable Channel 6 and pick up a copy of Saturday’s Journal-World.