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If you hit the stores on Black Friday, you were among 195 million people nationwide who also shopped on the official kick-off to the holiday season, according to the National Retail Federation.

The federation said today that the number of day-after-Thanksgiving shoppers rose above last year's total, which was 172 million. Click here for The Roanoke Times' Black Friday coverage.

Nearly one-third of the Black Friday shoppers surveyed headed out to stores before 5 a.m., which is an increase from 23 percent last year, the NRF said.

"I think all of this goes back to the economy," said Ellen Davis, an NRF spokeswoman, today during a conference call with the media. "People were willing to get out of bed for a good deal when they are trying to stretch their dollar."

Still, the amount of money that each person spent, on average, dropped to $343.31, from $372.57 last year.

That's likely because of some of the deeper discounts this year, even on higher-dollar electronics such as televisions, said Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the NRF, during today's conference call.

Shoppers also picked up more lower priced discretionary purchases, particularly $3 crockpots, sheet sets and other household items, Davis said.

Also, department stores were the big winners on Black Friday, while discount stores took an uncharacteristic back seat. Nearly half of all shoppers hit department stores on Friday, the NRF reported.

Overall, the most popular Black Friday purchases were books and apparel. But the number of shoppers buying toys jumped 12 percent from last year.

Here's a run-down of the top 10 popular toys (or toy categories) for girls and boys this holiday season, according to the NRF:

Girls:

1. Barbie

2. Dolls (generic)

3. Disney's Hannah Montana

4. Video games

5. Disney princess

6. Dora the Explorer

7. American Girl

8. Nintendo DS

9. Nintendo Wii

10. Zhu Zhu Pets

Boys:

1. Video games

2. Transformers

3. LEGO

4. Cars (generic)

5. Nintendo Wii

6. Trucks (generic)

7. Bakugan

8. Hot Wheels

9. Nintendo DS

10. Fisher-Price toys