Consumers finish last minute holiday shopping

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – The National Retail Federation expects more than 150 million people throughout America to go holiday shopping Saturday.

For malls across the country, the Saturday before Christmas is ‘super Saturday’.

The Lindale mall’s parking lot is filled to the brim as a surge of customers are searching for the perfect last minute Christmas gifts.

And one of the mall’s top destinations for Christmas shoppers is Handmade Holiday.

“Their husbands or significant others coming in and going for a certain thing that they were told was in a certain spot and they come looking for it and I’m glad that they’re listening,” said Angie Riek, Handmade Holiday owner.

Handmade Holiday hosts a collection of products from 35 local small businesses. They’re all benefiting from what the National Retail Federation predicts will be a new record of holiday spending, hitting at least $979 billion from November through December.

“Perfect time to go out, spend some time with family back here in town and get some holiday shopping done,” said Brady Horstmann.

Horstmann just got back in town from college and he’s one of many shoppers who used Saturday to look for some gifts.

“For me it’s just the handmade gifts and supporting local businesses in town. It’s a great way to pay it back to the community,” Horstmann said.

Handmade holiday opens at the start of November and runs through Christmas. Its owner said as the holidays approach, the shop sees more and more people.

“When we hit Thanksgiving, it turns into gift shopping. And then over the last few weeks it turns into ‘Okay I’m really running up into a deadline now to get presents’ and they are shopping a lot more the last couple weeks,” Riek said.

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