SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Slow sales leading up to Christmas had Roy's Audiotronics' manager on edge until he and his staff opened their doors on Boxing Day to a line-up of customers extending down the hall of the lower floor of YK Centre.

Pictured here on Dec. 29, Noel Hernandez, an employee at CD Plus, holds up the store's top-selling item over Christmas, Godson's newly released album the Resurrection. - Tim Edwards/NNSL photo

"A lot of times you end up seeing kind of a progressive build to Christmas, and it felt regular around here for a little while and then all of a sudden Boxing Day happened, and it exploded," said Robin Williams. "I've never seen so many bodies in the store at any given time."

He said with a laugh that it had almost a "Black Friday" feel to it, and that it may have been one of the biggest days in the store's history.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, most of what was sold at Roy's were the smaller, lower-priced items, but on Boxing Day the focus was on home audio equipment, which had been down in sales before, and TVs - a welcome factor, as the TV section takes up about 40 per cent of the floorspace, according to Williams.

"Flat panel (TVs) was definitely the Boxing Day thing," said Williams. "LED TVs were at the lowest prices we'd ever seen so people were definitely snapping those up."

The staff had to get creative in getting the large TVs out of the store, which was packed wall-to-wall with customers all day.

"A couple of times we had to go around the back hallway just because it was the path of least resistance to get the televisions out," said Williams.

Down the hall, The Chocolatier's big sales day was on December 23 when the YK Centre had a promotion where a customer would get a ballot to win a Ski-Doo when they spent $75 in any store in the mall.

"We did real well with that," said Joette Miller, manager of the store. "We put quite a lot of ballots in."

She said the store, in general, did "a bit better" than last year. There were cookie-cutters in the shapes of snowflakes and Christmas trees full of chocolate that were quickly snatched up by customers.

Shoppers looking for a few treats to fill out their Christmas lists were out of luck if they waited until the last minute on Christmas Eve day.

"We were long-gone, out of stocking stuffers by that point," said Miller.

Kitty-corner to the YK Centre, at the Centre Square Mall, CD Plus benefited from a new location right through the doors off Franklin Avenue.

"We beat last year's Christmas sales by a lot," said salesperson Noel Hernandez.

He said Boxing Day consisted mostly of exchanges for gifts that didn't make the cut, but Christmas Eve day brought in the big money.

"It was crazy all day long, non-stop. Both tills were going the whole time," said Hernandez.

He said the top-seller was a CD just released this month by his brother, who is also the store manager - Godson's The Resurrection. As well, Christmas-themed CDs were a big sell, as well as newly-released movies such as Despicable Me.

Down Franklin Avenue, and well into Old Town, shoppers looking for gifts that were a little more Northern-themed kept The Gallery of the Midnight Sun busy on Christmas Eve day.

"We had a really good year, actually, in comparison to the last few years," said manger Lisa Seagrave. "The

Christmas season was very good and continues to be good."

She said the customers were a "good mixture" of tourists and Yellowknifers, and the best-selling items were Dawn Oman's art; slippers, some of which were sheepskin while others were hide, which completely sold out; and glass, hand-painted Christmas balls crafted by Michelle Meckling, which flew off the shelves.

"They're all done by hand and we kept her busy for the whole season," said Seagrave. "We just couldn't keep them in stock, so I'm sure she's having a good rest this week."

The Gallery of the Midnight Sun wasn't open on Boxing Day.

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.