Saturday, November 25, 2006

Red eye Thursday

That’s what I heard it referred to twice on coverage of after Thanksgiving shopping. USA Today has a story on it. The Post has a similar story. There was an outlet mall somewhere in Pennsylvania that was opening its doors at midnight. The first tour buses were expected to arrive around 10:45 pm. There was a story locally about a guy who stood in line at a CompUSA for 21 hours. He said it was worth not having Thanksgiving dinner and not giving up his place in line to go to the bathroom (I’m not even going to touch that one).

It’s ironic. Thanksgiving used to seem like a real holiday. Now it’s been swallowed up by Halloween and Christmas.

The Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special was on last week. In an exchange between Sally and Charlie Brown, Sally says she was at the mall and Christmas stuff was already out. Charlie Brown responds before Thanksgiving. Those were the good old days. Now you’re lucky not to see stuff out before Labor Day. For sure you start to see things after Labor Day. Mostly it’s decorations and cards and stuff. But by the time the middle of October rolls around there are major Christmas departments in stores.

I guess retailers gave up on Thanksgiving because there really isn’t much you can sell to people. There is the food end of things and the transportation industry still makes a bundle on it but not stores. Halloween seems to have come into its own. And you see stuff for Halloween right after the back to school sales end. Oh well.

Of course I’m not all that concerned since I finished most of my shopping when I was in New Zealand.

No comments: