Shopping tradition drives U.S. economy
Dale McFeatters, Scripps Howard News Service, in an editorial: "After Thanksgiving comes Black Friday, so described not out of some sense of gloom or despondency but because that's when the ink on retailers' ledgers goes from red to black as shoppers hit the stores prepared to spend an estimated $457 billion between Thanksgiving and New Year's. And this year the retailers are gracing us with Cyber Monday, the ceremonial start to the online shopping season, according to the National Retail Federation. ... Online holiday season sales were more than $27 billion last year, not a market the retailers are going to ignore. ... Holiday shopping accounts for almost 20% of annual sales. ... Those big numbers are why the holiday season is of such interest to economic analysts. ... Some of the more fastidious might be discomfited by this annual exercise in consumption and materialism, but consumer spending is the engine that drives the American economy from which so many benefits flow."
(Thanksgiving’s barely over but ... Macy’s Christmas window displays are decked in Manhattan. / By Mark Lennihan, AP)
Joseph Busler, columnist, in the Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, N.J.: "Black Friday used to mean the busiest shopping day of the year. It was. But no more. ... While Black Friday usually ranks in the top five, for years the busiest shopping days have been the Saturday before Christmas, the Saturday before that, and so on. ... Online sales are eating up market share, and the online world isn't big on one-day sales. Also, savvy consumers have learned that the best discounts are closer to the end of the season than the beginning. Those factors — combined with the fact that hassled, time-crunched, two-income families are more likely to procrastinate and to shop on weekends — are why Black Friday is more a shade of gray these days."
Cathy Sorbo, columnist and comedian, Seattle Post-Intelligencer: "It's a widely known fact that retailers wheel out their holiday 'cheer' earlier and earlier each year, but when I saw Christmas stuff in stores before Halloween, I knew I was going to have to buckle up for a long and painful pre-holiday extravaganza. Nothing makes me crankier than an army of retailers cramming Christmas down my throat well before Thanksgiving. ... There is a name for this phenomenon, and its name is Holiday Creep. ... The last thing I want to do on the day after Thanksgiving (or ever) is wait in line at way-too-early o'clock to enter a Target store. I like Target, and I love to shop, but not enough to set my alarm for it. ... Happy shopping, gang. I'll be sleeping."
Lisa Monti, business editor, in a column in The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.: "Friday may look like the biggest shopping day of the year, but it probably won't be at the cash register. ... The day after Thanksgiving, better known as Black Friday, is impossibly crowded to be sure, but for about the last 10 years the busiest shopping day in terms of sales has been the last Saturday before Christmas. Can you say procrastinate? ... A more modern phenomenon is Cyber Monday ... when computerized shopping kicks into warp speed. The National Retail Federation crunched the numbers and found that last year, the average shopper spent $421.30 on gifts for family members, $78.99 on gifts for friends, $21.05 on co-workers' gifts, and $44.16 on other gifts."
The Evening Sun, Hanover, Pa., in an editorial: "Call us traditionalists, but it seems to us that our society has forgotten how to celebrate the holidays. Instead, we have let the need (or is it greed?) to simply get to the holiday take us over. ... Even the names we give days during the holiday taint them. Black Friday. Sounds like we should all be in mourning. ... Even the NFL has sold out. ... Three games on Thanksgiving — bite your tongue. ... Why not take some time this year to do it differently? Give each of these two special holidays their due. Take time to be thankful for everything that we have before running out to buy more. Remember, many of our sons and daughters and friends are still on foreign soil this Christmas. ... No matter how and where you choose to celebrate this holiday season, turn those calendar pages one at a time and enjoy."
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