Has secular Christmas peaked?

It's December 17th - Christmas Eve is a week from today. That means one more week of shopping, presents, wrapping, shipping and all those last minute stressful things that drive us this week of the year. Or is it?

This is my fifth Christmas/Holiday shopping season as a retailer, and it's been the strangest. People seem to be just... well... "blah".

Yesterday was the last day to paint pottery at my shop where we will guarantee the pottery be ready before Christmas. It was also a Saturday. If the past four years serves as any guide, then yesterday should have been the busiest - and I also mean the Craziest... people are usually crazy-stressed by just everything. But that's not the way it was yesterday. Sure, we were busy, but it was an eerie calm kind of busy.

It's not just my store, either. I just got home from a shopping trip where I hit Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond and Borders. Three places that I normally shudder to think of heading into this time of year. And yes, they were all busy, but again... eerie calm. And short lines at the register. I had hit both AC Moore and Michael's earlier this week and had the same feeling there, but I figured that was just a weird day. The fact that it's carried through the rest of my shopping spree makes me think that people are acting a little different lately. (we're also experiencing record warm temperatures here in Northern Virginia. I wonder if the fact that it doesn't feel anything like the middle of December has anything to do with it.)

Even though "Christmas" has been around for a long time, the shopping frenzy started in the 20th century. I'm wondering if everyone is not just saying they're tired of it... what if they are? As customers picked up their pottery in my store yesterday, I asked one of my standard holiday questions: "So are you done shopping for the season?" In past years, the responses got were like: "No! Oh my god there's only a week left!" But yesterday, the standard went something more like: "No... eh... I'll get done what I get done. No biggie."

As a retailer, I've had a hard time getting into the mode where I need to start decorating for Christmas in October and playing Christmas music in November and going nuts with sales all through December. Sure, we have lots of Christmas and holiday related pottery to sell... but beyond that, I've never gone to any extreme. Don't get me wrong... I'm just as anxious to sell during this season as the next retailer, but I've never felt I should go to extremes to have to.

Maybe people are finally starting to see that the real value in these holidays is the time one gets to spend with friends and family. As a retailer, I hope that means stronger sales the rest of the year. As a human being, it makes me glad.

I'll be interested to see how overall retail sales numbers look at the end of the year.