After more than an hour, Grace Alexander made it out of the packed Apple store at the Mall of America with a new iPhone, a combined Christmas and birthday gift for her mom.
“And it’ll be the gift for next year’s Mother’s Day and every other holiday in between because it’s a really generous gift,” Alexander’s mom, Cynthia Jacobs, said with a laugh after she helped pick out her new phone.
Jacobs said the lines of customers wrapped around the store were what she expected to see at the Mall of America on the Sunday before Christmas. But Alexander, who said she visits the Mall of America about every other weekend, said the crowds earlier in the afternoon resembled a typical weekend.
As the clock ticks down to Christmas and Hanukkah on Wednesday and guaranteed Christmas Eve delivery has passed, last-minute shoppers must run to brick-and-mortar stores if they have any hope to snag a gift in the eleventh hour. Saturday and Sunday were expected to be almost as busy for stores as Black Friday, analysts said.

Retailers were nervous going into the holiday season. Most forecasts, including the one from the National Retail Federation, predicted modest spending growth of 3%. Plus, the stretch from Thanksgiving to Christmas is five days shorter than last year and one of the shortest seasons in several years, pushing retailers to have to jam more transactions in a smaller period of time.
Big-box stores like Minneapolis-based Target started discounts early and saw encouraging results on Thanksgiving weekend, especially Black Friday. Malls also saw strong traffic on Black Friday. Stores were hoping for those same sort of numbers this weekend.
More frenzied shoppers poured into the Mall of America by late afternoon, as many rushed to finish their holiday lists. Many people took a relaxed approach to shopping to enjoy the experience and grabbed photos with Santa or stopped to listen to the Twin Cities’ Brio Brass band play a jazzy rendition of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.”
Mall of America shopper Marissa Currie, who traveled to the Twin Cities from a small community in the Canadian province of Manitoba, said she didn’t have to wait in too many long lines Sunday afternoon, save for at a couple of stores.