Waterford - The goal: save $600 on $920 worth of merchandise at Toys R Us.

The strategy: Get to the store at 8 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day for sales that kick off at 9 p.m. that night. Scratch that - get there at 1 a.m., then every three hours after that to make sure there are no lines yet, THEN decide to stay for good at 8 a.m.

Also, because everybody has to eat: grab a rotisserie chicken from Stop & Shop and pick at it throughout the day, all in the name of a good bargain.

That's Phelicia Bauer's way of tackling Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year and one steeped in almost as much tradition as the day that precedes it. The 21-year-old from Uncasville and her 18-year-old sister, Tiffany Bauer, were first in line at the giant toy store, which opened its doors on Thanksgiving night, three hours earlier than many area stores.

In past years, Black Friday shopping began at the crack of dawn. But bargain-shopping time has in recent years crept up closer and closer to dinnertime. This year, several big-name retailers decided to open their doors on Thanksgiving night.

Shoppers responded. By 7:30 p.m., a line had snaked around the Toys R Us building and down the side. Yellow caution tape roped off the waiting area, and clusters of shoppers stood or sat by their blue shopping carts, ready.

Bauer had her eyes on a $40 train set for her 2-year-old son, Noah, plus dozens of other toys and goods marked down to half-price that she had printed off the Internet and neatly pasted onto pages and pages of computer paper.

Each item was labeled with the aisle number in which that item could be found; Bauer had stopped by the store Wednesday evening to track down the location of her purchases. She'd even hand-drawn a map of the store so that she and her sister could quickly navigate the area as they divided and conquered.

And because time was of the essence, a friend was recruited to stand in line at the registers. This was, after all, only the Bauers' first stop - they'd later hit up Target, Walmart, Kohl's and Crystal Mall.

"I really like getting good deals, and you get the best deals on Black Friday, so I get all my Christmas shopping done," Bauer said.

A few cold, huddled bodies down the line, 10-year-old Angela DeWolf sat with her aunt, Tina Wohlforth, under a blanket.

"This is my first year," Angela said. "I'm excited."

Black Friday is something Angela's mom, Toni, traditionally shares with Tina Wohlforth, her twin sister. But this year, Toni stayed home with her husband, who is ill, and their two other children while Angela got to stay up past her bedtime and shop like a grown-up.

"I'm going to try to get something special for me," Angela said - while, of course, also helping her aunt find all the other presents.

"I gotta be the runner girl, grabbing everything, trying to pull things away from people," she joked.

A mother, daughter and daughter-in-law who arrived at 7 p.m. said they were partaking in Black Friday shopping solely for the excitement of seeing their children get what they really, really want for Christmas.

Or, put another way, "You do this for your kids so that when you're older, they don't put you in a nursing home," said Danielle Brezniak, 31, of Brooklyn.

j.cho@theday.com