November 23, 2005
Turkey Day

You’re on your own.  At least when it comes to Christmas shopping in 2005.   Tomorrow when clan Maynard bows our collective heads and gives Thanksgiving thanks for blessings bestowed we’ll have every right to be at the front of the gratitude parade.  Why?  This year Turkey Day not only brings us Thanksgiving but also will host the family holiday gift exchange.  Yes the Christmas shopping season is in our family’s rear view mirror. 

Don’t think for a moment we’re a well-organized bunch. Far from it as self-discipline has long been absent from the family DNA. Time and circumstances combined to pressure us into and early season scenario of having all gifts purchased, wrapped and waiting to be placed under the Yuletide tree.  Not that this year’s presents will ever make it to the shade of an indoor evergreen.  2005 is an odd numbered year meaning come December 25^th the daughters, and more importantly the grandchildren, will be celebrating Christmas with the out-laws.  It’s only during the even number years that Christmas and grandchildren are exclusively ours.  

Having Christmas shopping out of the way before Thanksgiving might be rare, make that unheard of, at our house, it’s not all that unusual for the rest of the country.  According to surveys millions of Americans have the bulk of their holiday shopping accomplished by mid-November.  The Sears “Wish Big” poll revealed only 17% of shoppers kick off the holiday season the Friday after Thanksgiving, always thought to be  “numero uno” in retail sales.   

Let us pause for a moment in this weekly discourse to acknowledge Sears in their clarity of holiday thought.  This Christmas season finds the struggling retailer dispensing with small talk and going straight for the jugular.  Forget the cloying Christmas commercials of yesteryear with their “peace on earth, good will toward men and remember to check out the holiday savings in home appliances” messages of years past.  This year the Sears thought for America is a simple hedonistic holiday thought, “Wish Big.”?  “Hey” seems to be the Sears suggestion, “Why piddle around with mundane requests like underwear and ties when you could be asking Santa for I-Pods and “High Def”.  True happiness, Sears seems to be saying, is yours with a Gordon Gecko “greed is good” holiday season.  Just “Wish Big”.  

Holiday shopping, like the rest of our lives, has experienced dramatic change in the last decade.  Remember when local merchants urged one and all to “shop at home”? Today those same retailers worry about our taking that message to heart. Many folks do indeed “shop at home”, on their computer.  Local merchants find themselves not only competing with Denver and Salt Lake retailers but internet shopping has become a major competitor.  Our local merchants in rightfully boast their customer service is far superior to what Internet retailers offer but computer businesses have one distinct advantage local stores refuse to match.  Only at Internet retailers permit shopping in your underwear.   

Words can’t express the satisfaction unique to computer holiday shopping at ten in the evening with a bowl of Raisin Bran beside the keyboard, the news on TV and you’re clad only in “tighty-whities”.  True, wives find it disgusting but what a small price to pay.  Walk into either a downtown or mall store in just your “Jockies” and expect to be arrested. Unless you’re wearing colored underwear.  Then folks assume it’s  “Speedo Man”.