Standing next to strollers inside teeming Yorkdale Shopping Centre on Monday, J.J. Ceniza and his brother-in-law, Adolfo Venzes, played the role of dutiful husbands.

Patience was needed as their wives hunted for Boxing Day deals. Ceniza, visiting from Chicago, had been with his family at the mall for more than two hours. The mass of people, he said, was overwhelming.

“Basically, it’s more crowded than Black Friday,” said Ceniza, referring to the American discount shopping bonanza which occurs the day after Thanksgiving.

The numbers don’t lie. At 11:45 a.m., an estimated 13,500 shoppers crammed the mall, near Dufferin St. and Highway 401, said general manager Anthony Casalanguida. He expected roughly 105,000 souls to pass through before closing. An average Saturday draws maybe 75,000.

Casalanguida pointed to the warm weather as one reason numbers were so high. Plus, with widespread sales, Boxing Day brings out people’s more basic instincts.

“If you go shopping on Boxing Day, you’re excited by the hunt,” he said.

But traffic inside forced even the most inveterate shoppers to search for a quiet nook. Lunches were eaten in stairwells. Seniors slept on benches. At the 401 Yorkdale Rd. off-ramp, cars were backed up for kilometres attempting to enter the mall’s packed parking lot.

“It sucks, man,” said Carlos Andre, a construction worker leaning against a food court railing. He called the Boxing Day sales “bogus” and found no “real discounts.”

But for 16-year-old friends Athena Tassis and Effie Takas, who said they hate shopping despite stepping into a long line outside Victoria’s Secret Pink, Boxing Day is not just about slashed prices.

“It’s about being with friends at the mall,” Takas said.

At the downtown Eaton Centre, which opened its doors at 7 a.m., shoppers also complained about overcrowding. Reid Kerr-Keller, 17, sitting near the second-floor Christmas tree, waited for some girlfriends in line at nearby Aritzia.

“Have you seen the lines?” Kerr-Keller said. “They’re rough. Let the girls stand in line.”