Are you guys noticing the lack of merchandise in the stores??? I mean we've got malls with empty parking lots. I saw Christmas clearance before Halloween.

Y'know how they show the old musicals & movies on tv from the 40's & dozens of dancers would just break out in song & dance somewhere random? Hey, check out the dance floor opportunities at The Gap at the mall--plenty of room in there for tons of happy dancers and singers--not much merchandise--There's usually hardly room to walk through the store it's so crammed packed with merchandise huh.

I'm just feeling creepy about it.

I mean don't get me wrong--I'm not huge material girl at Christmas--I'm just saying wow wow wow and prices are slashed too.

I don't know--what do you think??? You noticing anything different where you live???

It sounds like a good sign that stores are being smarter. Instead of stocking to the gills with too much inventory, then trying to shove it down our throat as an "oh my god you've GOT to have this!" campaign, they've actually paid attention to what's going on and stocked to what they believe will be the REAL demand, and not the media induced demand.

There's also lots of online shopping going on which could account for the empty stores. My daughter is buying a lot of her Christmas from Walmart ... via their website.

I agree Debbie..I do alot of online shopping because it is convenient and I don't have to leave the warmth of my home...I think with the economies being the way they are...many large companies are scaling back...

Delivery to the stores is now payment on delivery, not within 30 days.

It's less crazy here, too. I'd heard that stores ordered a lot less because they don't expect to sell it and can't afford to have it as inventory after Christmas.

I'm liking it. In the last ten years I've felt like Christmas was absolutely out of control. It had gone from being festive to just being maniacal and greedy. I'd love to see a cultural shift to being less materialistic. Sure wish I could talk my DH into that!

Yes I think the less materialistic aspect is a good thing.
And while that's good I wish it had come out of our heart of hearts rather the economic toxicity we're enduring.

I din know you can order from Walmart online. But I usually avoid stores from late November through December--because the of the crowds.

I mean The Gap store was 'bout bare neked. It looked like it was after the after Christmas sales--kinda empty of people too.

But dude, there's tons of places to park out there!!! No lines.
Wish I could say no worries <grimace>

I know for our family here for the last couple of years, we have focused more on spending more quality time with family and friends rather than on spending for gifts. Getting together for board games and pot luck dinners have been a LOT of fun. No one here is missing the holiday rush to shop.

At our big family Christmas, we now take a small donation from each family and buy one gift for each child under 18. The adults are now just having fun watching the kids and enjoing the company! I think it is teaching the kids about what is really important too - a win win for everyone.

Loucinda, our family christmas's have always been a "buy for the kids only" deal. On my side of the family, my sisters and I have NEVER bought gifts for each other as adults. It was like an unwritten rule that once you turned 18, you were off the christmas list!

I'm one of 6 kids, so if you can imagine trying to buy for 5 siblings AND spouses AND their kids ..... no way!! I've read about families who buy for everyone and I can only sit back and wonder how in the world they do it.

On my husband's side of the family, we buy for the kids and you can buy for an adult if you want to, but there's no pressure or expectation in either direction on adult gifts. Very low stress.

We live in a small town and surrounding towns aren't much better so we also do a lot of shopping on line. Only buy Christmas gifts for the two grandchildren and a small gift for my son and his wife and that is it.

Every once in a while we order from Wal-Mart on-line as they usually don't have what we want in the store. Where I live they have a special area in the back of the store that they put in about a year ago(as this method has grown) just for pick up of on-line orders and there is no shipping to pay for. Wal-Mart also sells coffins on-line. I wonder how that works. I doubt that the funeral home would pick it up for you since they want you to buy from them. We don't have do it yourself funerals in Wisconsin.

Just heard on the news last week that Penney's will no longer be putting out a hard copy catalog next year. Darn - good bathroom reading material!

I just started seeing the ads for Walmart where you can order on-line and they ship it FREE to a store where you pick it up. I love that idea. I wish someone would do that with fondant!!

When I tried to get my husband's family to at least draw names and buy one nice thing for one person, they all looked at me like I'd suggested a Communist takeover of the government. They're such a bunch of money grubbers, it ruins Christmas for me. I dread it every year.

We tried the draw a name for 2 years and it was a bust. It would work if everyone was there at the same time and had the same budget, but was a mess for us as that turned out to be the year we started going at different times..

My MIL's birthday is 1/27, and one year we told her we wanted to combine her Christmas and birthday gifts and buy her a really nice VCR/DVD player (that she wanted) which was much more than we would have spent on two smaller gifts for Xmas and Bday. She gave us a look like we were THE worst cheapskates she'd ever known.

The woman is 75 years old and she can't grasp the idea that we wanted to give her something that she would NOT have gotten for either Christmas or her birthday because it was too much money, but she made it clear she felt cheated. What an ingrate. Mind you, we always drive the hour to get her, take her to a nice dinner, and drive her back home on her birthday, too. Ugh, she's just the worst.