Dec
26
The 13th month.
That’s what some retailers call this period between Christmas and New Year’s, which accounts for 16% of all retail dollars spent from Thanksgiving to the end of the year.
Once the Christmas post-season was merely a time for many happy returns, accompanies by the hope that the returners would see something they liked and make some other purchase on the same visit. But two other factors are in play nowadays — gift certificates, and the Autosanta Effect.
Gift certificate sales are up 6% from last year based on consumer surveys — later reports on actual redemptions may change that figure, but as it stands now it’s more than double the pace of overall retail sales increases. There are reports of some local stores actually running out of gift cards.
The Autosanta Effect is my term for the phenomenon of affluent consumers going out after Christmas to buy stuff they hoped they would see under the tree but didn’t.
Both of these factors are driven by the relative affluence of consumers compared to time past. Gift cards are on the rise because people have more stuff and it’s harder to shop for them. Self-gifting is up because many people can afford it.
For bookkeeping and tax reasons, it is convenient for a store to move unsold merchandise now, even at a small loss, than to carry it over in the next year hoping to sell it for more later. So merchandise that was supposed to sell before Christmas but didn’t will be cheaper now, maybe a lot cheaper.
Want a tip? Women’s apparel sales this season were actually lower than last year, a significant cool spot in sales. You could find deep discounting in clothing stores.
Dec
24
The truth about Christmas
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 | Leave a Comment
We like to talk about how inscrutible other cultures are, but it’s difficult to imagine anyone fully understanding Christmas who grew up outside its ambit.
It’s joyous but also sad. It’s mercantile but it isn’t. It’s religious but secular. It’s soothing but also stressful.
For a household with children that isn’t in straitened circumstances, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” If you’re poor or alone it’s “a blue Christmas.”
Those who don’t celebrate the holiday, who may fit in perfectly the rest of the year, feel excluded or sidelined as society obsesses over decorated conifers and strings of light. If you prefer egg creams to egg nogs, or a Buddhist instead of a Baptist, suddenly life seems to be about other people. Thus is the most widely celebrated of all American holidays is an exclusionary experience.
Even for celebrants, the ghosts of Christmas past can add a wistful note, the memory of loved ones no longer with us. How can you look at the same decorations you had when a family member was still alive and not think of that person?
There are seasonal songs to remind us of estrangement (”I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams”) and I recently blogged about tunes like “White Christmas” or “Chestnuts roasting…” in which the singer seems apart from the celebration, observing the happiness of others or merely holding out the hope of being happy at some point.
Even the pious can experience a sense of estrangement. I know members of a fundamentalist church who had their own schism over the issue was whether the tree, with pagan roots, should not be used to mark Christmas. The history of the Christmas tree was not that much disputed — the problem was that many of the congregation had become attached to the tradition and felt strongly that it did no harm.
The mercantile aspects of Christmas are a similar story. For as long as I can remember, it has been a commentary topic at this time of year to rail against the “commercialization” of Christmas, but the history of Christmas is the other way around.
Christmas was a pagan holiday that was appropriated by the Church. Then it was appropriated by merchants, mainly one particular New York department store owner, whose personal faith did not prevent him from leveraging the holiday to spur gift buying.
Then it was appropriated by the rest of us, who somehow managed to turn it into a generous, amiable, loving holiday for family, friends and colleagues.
Say, that’s cheering, isn’t it?
Make a choice for yourself. Maybe you don’t celebrate Christmas, or maybe if you do you won’t get all you want, or someone else won’t like what you got as much as you hoped. Don’t fret about all that. Christmas can be a quiet day (if only by stepping into the next room for awhile) with its moments of happiness, and if the giving or receiving falls short for any reasons, you’ve always got next year.
Dec
21
“Full” employment
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9 | Leave a Comment
Even after rising eight tenths of a percent in one year, Hawaii unemployment is 2.9%, and anything 3% or less is considered by economists to be “full employment.”
Full employment basically means, anyone who who wants a job can get one, provided he applies for a job for which he is qualified. Anyone who can’t find work has a misguided view of his qualifications or a serious personal problem.
Below 2% is considered “overemployment.” This means that people are being hired for jobs they are manifestly unsuited for. Anyone who dines out has run into waithelp that would never be employed in a normal economy. (The competent waitors must hate these people.)
I bring this up because an entire generation of inexperienced young people are entering this abnormal labor market with nothing to compare it to. To them it will seem normal — until years from now when there is a sluggish economy, their bad work habits get them fired, and being human they will blame their bosses or coworkers or anything else but themselves.
I cannot stress enough, if you’re a parent and your child can’t find a job or can’t hold one, look closely at things because it’s a “what’s wrong with this picture” situation.
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