Facing wintry temperatures, long queues, and zealous crowds, shoppers swarmed area stores today for a spending frenzy that has become a holiday in its own right.

“Everybody’s in a good mood,” said Rose House, a shopper from Eudora who woke at 4 a.m. for an early descent on the Lawrence stores with her daughter, Julie White.

From discount stores to departments stores, the scene was similar. Lines. Carts filled with boxes large and small. Hands rifling through wares.

The motto: anything for a deal.

Dimitra Atri, a KU graduate student, stood in a line that wrapped around Best Buy, 2020 W. 31st St., in the pre-dawn hours. He had bypassed sleep completely and headed to the store at 4 a.m.

Atri said it was a bit cold for such a feat. But later, with a $60 television set boxed and at his feet, Atri was victorious.

“It was worth it,” he said.

Across the country, shoppers were also finding it worth their while to get into store early for what’s known as “Black Friday,” the official start of the holiday shopping season.

The checkout lanes at Sears stretched with shoppers looking for holiday gifts.

At a Best Buy store at CambridgeSide Galleria, in Cambridge, Mass., the line of about 400 shoppers snaked through the indoor mall for the 5 a.m. store opening, when staff allowed groups of shoppers inside, about a dozen every minute or so. The opening was orderly, despite some grumbling that not all shoppers were let in at once.

“The prices are much better than last year,” said Shirley Xie, who was with Jen Lin, both from Medford, Ma. The married couple said they were enticed by deals such as a $379.99 offer for a Toshiba laptop computer, with a 15-inch screen, after a $370 instant rebate, which ended at noon Friday. Xie said a comparable laptop she bought last year as a gift cost about $600. The couple bought a pair of the Toshiba computers as gifts for a niece and nephew entering college.

The couple also bought a SanDisk MP3 player for $39.99 after a $60 instant rebate available until noon.

• Santa to arrive in downtown this evening

In northwest Columbia, S.C. at a Wal-Mart store which opened at 5 a.m., an hour earlier than a year ago, Darryl Davis of Irmo, S.C., was scouring for a notebook computer and a 42-inch flat screen television.

“We’ve got needs, since we just moved into a new house, and then the kids, they’ve still got their wish list,” said Davis said.

Marly Sturkie of Swansea, S.C., was also there, shortly before the 5 a.m. opening at Wal-Mart, keeping up the tradition of heading to early bird specials on the day after Thanksgiving.

“We never went to sleep last night,” Sturkie said, noting that she and her friends were buying three television-DVD combos, saving $50 on each.

Retailers’ spirits have improved in recent weeks amid falling gasoline prices. In fact, earlier this week the Washington-based National Retail Federation upgraded its holiday growth forecast to 6 percent, from 5 percent, announced back in September.

Still, many shoppers are cautious. While gasoline prices have fallen, they are still high, and this winter, shoppers will face higher heating bills.

Retailers are hoping that consumers won’t delay their holiday shopping until the last minute, but most analysts believe consumers will procrastinate again this year.

While the day after Thanksgiving officially starts the holiday shopping season, it is no longer the busiest shopping day. Last year, it was Saturday, Dec. 18, a week before Christmas.

Last year, the Thanksgiving weekend rush accounted for only 9.2 percent of holiday sales. The busiest week was from Dec. 12 through Dec. 18, which garnered 22.5 percent of holiday sales, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers.