Nov 22 2008
Santa and Scrooge Arrive Together
In my day, Santa waited until the day after Thanksgiving.
Yesterday, Santa made his “long-awaited” appearance at the local Shopping Mall. Thanksgiving is still a week away. What is this anyway? Is Scrooge arriving early too?
I took a look at a calendar and realized that Thanksgiving is pretty late this year. It could arrive as early as November 21, but this year it occurs on November 27th. A quick count on the calendar reveals just how many shopping days are left until Christmas. Plenty for me, but not so many for the retail stores who depend on these four weeks for a HUGE percentage of their annual sales. And speaking of Scrooges:
The economy is in the pits, and retail doesn’t look forward to a very healthy buying season, but they do have ways of cutting costs too. Fewer, if any, seasonal employees this year. Less overtime, if any at all, for regular employees. And layoffs. Yes, that dreaded word–layoffs–never welcome, but never hurts so badly as at Christmas time.
I used to think that any employer who laid off workers in the month before Christmas was a heartless old Scrooge. Okay, I still think so.
The truth of the Scrooge part is economics. Manufacturing and Retail cannot operate in the red all of the time or pretty soon everyone would be out of job. So cuts have to be made during slow times, just as new hiring takes place in good times. Thankfully, most unemployment is covered with benefits these days. It wasn’t always so.
In days past, (Scrooge days of yore), the laid off worker often had to give up his home and move in with family or friends. Actually, that sounds kind of current, doesn’t it? I know some folks are losing their homes even while keeping their jobs. The memories of the “good old days” is as recent as two years ago.
Sadly, it looks like we will be in for more hard times in the near future. It does mean that families and friends have to rely upon each other again. For many adult children, some with children of their own, it means calling upon Grandpa and Grandma for assistance, either monetarily or physically, as in providing a place to live.
Don’t forget, there will come a day when the situation is reversed. It pays to keep friends and family on good terms, does it not?
The holidays are more retail than anything else and yes I remember when there was not even a mention of Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving (now called Black Friday). We still try to fend off Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving.