Black Friday's A Bummer for Some; Psychology of Violence on Black Friday; Kitten Rescued on Thanksgiving Day
WHITFIELD: All right. The countdown to Christmas begins at the White House. The official White House Christmas tree arriving there, right outside the White House. It's beautiful. Right there on the carriage. First Lady Michelle Obama receiving the special delivery from Wisconsin, at the north portico and there, her daughters Sasha and Malia along with her. Here's the pictures recently taken just moments ago as they're kind of surveying the tree, making it a real family affair there with the dog. The 19-foot balsam fir is from Schroeder's Forever Green near Neshkoro, Wisconsin. I hope I got that right. It was selected in early October and harvested this month. And ready to be perched in its place and decorated for everyone to see and enjoy. All right. Now that Thanksgiving is over, Americans are embracing another holiday tradition -- Black Friday, when retailers slash prices to entice the crowds like these.</s>CROWD: Three, two, one!</s>WHITFIELD: OK. Well, at least they weren't storming through and running. Some are starting to pick up the pace -- mst walking, though. This taking place at Macy's at the flagship store in Manhattan. It opened at midnight in New York. And Target, Best Buy and Kohl's also opened their doors at midnight. While savvy shoppers may get a rush out of bagging some early bargains, not everyone is as thrilled. George Howell is at a Best Buy in Atlanta. He's thrilled to be there. But who is unhappy?</s>GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Fredericka, first of all, as far as customers, they are pretty satisfied with what we're seeing. This store opened, as you mentioned, at midnight. But customers started camping out 6:00 p.m. Wednesday. I don't know if there's such a thing as black Wednesday, but a lot of people in here now and certainly a busy time for the employees here. Many of them started their shift at 10:00 p.m. Thanksgiving Day. They will be ending that shift this hour, 11:00 Eastern so 12-hour shift, a long day for them. You get a mix. You get some worker who is are fine with it who take it in stride and you also find some that we focused on, that we talked to, who have a problem with these big stores opening on Black Friday early.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have a notebook for $79 but I didn't get soon enough for that one.</s>HOWELL (voice-over): It's 6:00 a.m., the doors are open at K- Mart. But this is Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. We found customers like Elaine and Carlos Gonzalez putting turkey dinner on the back burner in search of bargains.</s>ELAINE GONZALEZ, SHOPPER: We got him a Kinect for his birthday and I got my oldest son a big TV and we got a camera for the family.</s>HOWELL: From Macy's to Wal-Mart, customers are finding good deals when stores open early for Black Friday. But what about the employees who give up their Thanksgiving?</s>RICK MELARAGNI, BEST BUY EMPLOYEE: We are retail workers and expected to work odd hours. This is the first year that Best Buy as a whole asked us to miss our Thanksgiving.</s>HOWELL: Rick Melaragni started an online petition against Best Buy for asking employees to work Thanksgiving Day. He's gotten more than 15,000 signatures.</s>MELARAGNI: I understand that there's money to be made and we need to make that money. But family should always come above any form of money.</s>HOWELL: Another petition started by a Target employee in Omaha, Nebraska, has gotten some 200,000 signatures. Anthony Hardwick explained via Skype.</s>ANTHONY HARDWICK, TARGET EMPLOYEE: The store management is very friendly. Think about the people who are having an issue with this petition are up in Minneapolis.</s>HOWELL: Both Minneapolis-based retailers responded. From Target, "We have heard from our guests that they want to shop Target following their Thanksgiving celebrations rather than only having the option of getting up in the middle of the night." And from Best Buy, "We have customers who have told us that they'd like to shop Best Buy on Thanksgiving Day, and that's why we're opening at midnight." Ellen Davis with the National Retail Federation says stores opened early to stay competitive.</s>ELLEN DAVIS, NATIONAL RETAIL FEDERATION: For the last several years, Black Friday has been the biggest shopping day of the year. And retailers know that they need to do everything they can in order to maximize the sales on that day.</s>HOWELL: While some may choose to enjoy the holiday at home, those out for the deals are giving thanks for those giving up their holiday.</s>GONZALEZ: They're giving up their family time and they need to -- everybody should just say thank you for being here today.</s>HOWELL: I want to come back to a live picture here in Atlanta, Georgia, just to show you how busy this Best Buy is. It's been consistent since midnight through the morning. And just here in the last few minutes, Fredericka, we are starting to see a change of faces as these employees who have been working since 10:00 p.m. are starting to go home and new employees are coming in.</s>WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness. They're tuckered out. All right, George Howell, thanks so much for that view of Black Friday. So, with all the Black Friday hype, you'd think that just about every American might be in a store today. Well, apparently not the case. A new CNN/ORC poll finds just 23 percent of Americans, fewer than one in four, will actually hit the stores today. A whopping 76 percent say no thanks. They'll happily sit out Black Friday. And a lot of people working the cash registers today are part- timers who can't find full-time work. Before the recession, 4 million Americans were working as part-timers. For that reason, how many are there now? Nine million? Or is B, 5 million? Or C, 3 million? The answer in a moment.