Weather Chills Irving Mall's After-Christmas Shopping

Many stores open late because of icy roads

The wintry weather conditions may be to blame light crowds at Irving Mall.

Fewer shoppers than expected showed up to make returns or shop end-of-the-year sales.

Krisha Jeffries, a shopper, said she braced the cold to start shopping early, but her plan didn't exactly work out.

"Everything was closed, so I was just walking around until everything got opened," she said.

Irving Mall spokeswoman Elizabeth Barth said about 30 percent of the stores opened an hour later because their employees were stuck at home because of icy road conditions.

Lisa Peterson, a visitor from Pennsylvania, said she was surprised that the Christmas Day snowfall led so many people to alter their plans.

"I think people are staying home. I don't think they want to scrape their cars like we did today," she said. "We're used to the snow, the ice. Like, when we saw that there were delays this morning to go to work, we just looked at the TV and said, 'Delays?' We looked out the window and said, 'For what?'"

Barth said Wednesday's lighter turnout could mean even bigger crowds during the weekend.

"This is when all the stores will do any type of end-of-the-year sale, after-Christmas sales," she said. "They want to get those last-minute shopping in."

Because half of the year's gift card sales occur in December, Barth expects many of them to be redeemed in the coming days.

"The smart ones do because that's when all the stores are doing their sales and that's when they can get the most bang for their buck, really," she said.

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