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Christmas Shopping Shows People Are Hurting
But the Spirit of Christmas doesn’t have to be dimmed
Watching online news in November of this year, I was struck by what was missing — video footage of packed department stores, Black Friday riots, and lines of people waiting for shops to open.
While I have avoided Black Friday events for decades despite the great sales because I hate the crazy crowds that flock to them, I was troubled not to see the signs of chaos. Why? Because I wondered if it’s a harbinger of bad economic times.
When people feel they have spare cash, they celebrate Christmas. They get and decorate a tree, they hang up lights, and they buy presents. They often also donate to their favorite charity or buy gifts for poor children. They drop a few coins into the Salvation Army bucket and make tax-deductible contributions of clothes and furniture to that charity and others like it.
Christmas is a holiday when people give.
One unfortunate aspect of that has been malls turning into madhouses. The fact that it didn’t happen this year…
Curious, I looked up holiday sales for 2023 as compared to other years.
This chart from Earnest Analytics tells the story of holiday sales decline:
