Gobbling up good bargains

You’d think they’d have waited until the turkey and stuffing went cold — except that they passed up Thanksgiving to hit the stores early.

“I said, ‘I’m not making anything this year — I’m going shopping!” said Deena Demmings of Brooklyn, who rode an hour on the train so she’d be there when Macy’s flagship Herald Square store opened its doors at 5 p.m. Thursday.

“We skipped dinner,” said Long Island City resident Leo Mantilo, 36, who was at Macy’s with his daughters and wife. “We are trying to find anything special.”

Odds were that they’d find something good. Macy’s advertised over 500 “door buster” specials on Thursday.

About 35 million people were expected to hit the stores on Thursday — up 9.4 percent over last year, a survey by the National Retail Federation forecast.

It’ll be even more crowded the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, routinely the busiest day of the shopping year. The federation expects 116 million Americans will shop today — up about 0.6% from last year.

The group’s annual survey predicts the number of shoppers to drop about 5.3% on Saturday and Sunday of the long holiday weekend, from 106.5 million in 2017 to 100.9 million this year.

But the weekend drop-off won’t put a damper on the entire holiday. High employment and a chugging economy are boosting retail sales across the country, the National Retail Federation says.

The group expects sales this holiday season to jump between 4.3% and 4.8% over last year, and total spending to be between $171.45 billion and $720.89 billion.

Cyber Monday sales are forecast to set a record at $7.7 billion this year, a 17.6% boost over 2017, say experts at Adobe Analytics.

The real-life, non-cyber show in Herald Square on Thanksgiving was irresistible to out-of-towners.

“It’s not quite this wild at home. This is total chaos,” said Stephanie Sarnowski, a tourist from Florida.