Signs of the times

I hear it in the news every time I watch the news, which, granted, is not every day: the economy is bad.

And, yes, I see that in the stock market declines, in the dropping price of gasoline, on the front pages of my daily Wall Street Journal and Financial Times.

But I'm beginning to really "see" it for myself.

Yesterday, I went Christmas shopping. It was 8 days before Christmas; the stores should have been buzzing. They weren't. In fact, some of them were downright empty.

I went to a Marshall's, a company I worked for back in the day for 6 years. We NEVER, ever did markdowns on Christmas merchandise before Christmas!! But, yesterday, what to my wondering eyes should appear? An aisle full of Christmas decor clearance priced, on December 17. And the aisles of "my" Marshall's were always jammed full of shoppers this close to the holiday; yesterday, the store was largely empty.

Then, I went to TJ Maxx, Marshalls' sister store, where there were more customers, but also, a lot more merchandise on the shelves which leads me to think that sales have been slow, thus far. The Christmas merchandise should be almost gone, and it wasn't.

Stops at WalMart, Target, and Lowe's also revealed few shoppers, compared to this time of years past, and early markdowns.

Another "odd" sign.... very few Christmas cards in my mailbox. I don't think I've offended that many people in the past year that they would drop me from their mailing list for personal reasons; I can only assume people are cutting out the non-essentials, like Christmas cards.

It's just weird, I tell you. I "know" people are hurting; I know businesses are going under; I know these things intellectually. But to see them with my own eyes, in my little space of midwest America, is weird. And scary. And humbling.

I still believe the best advice (for most of us) is to live frugally, practice simplicity, hunker down and don't panic. And if cutting out Christmas cards helps keep food on your table, I won't be offended that I didn't get one this year.