Lots of shopping days till Christmas
Thanksgiving is behind us and the countdown has begun. Including today, there are now 29 shopping days until Christmas.
I’ve never much cared about how many days there are until I need to wedge myself into a jam-packed store in search of a last-minute gift for someone I see once a year. In this regard, I have as much Scrooge in me as old Ebenezer himself before he received his visitations. And things have become much easier through the years, so I don’t hold a lot of pity for those who wind up making such an onerous trip on Dec. 24.
(Here comes one of those “Why, when I was your age, I walked 5 miles to school every day, uphill both ways!” sort of rants, so brace yourself.)
When I was a child, there were these things called “blue laws.” It was illegal for many businesses to open their doors on Sunday. That’s why the term “shopping days” came into existence in the first place. A distinction had to be made between the number of days until Christmas and those upon which you could actually purchase stuff. If those laws were still in effect, there wouldn’t be 29 shopping days now; there would only be 24. And, with Christmas Eve falling on a Sunday, as it does this year, the last day you could buy anything would be the 23rd.
In addition, the internet wasn’t even a gleam in Al Gore’s eye, so you couldn’t hop on a computer, order a matched set of his-andhers bowling shoes, and be assured of delivery to your Aunt Fanny and Uncle Cyrus in Iowa the next day. No, you needed to place a phone call to someone — after searching through multiple 300-page treekilling catalogs — and then expect a wait of three or four weeks before they arrived.
It was even worse for earlier generations. Until 1939, Thanksgiving was the last Thursday in November. That meant, in a year such as this, it would have fallen on the fifth Thursday, the 30th of the month, and there would have been only 20 shopping days between your turkey dinner and Santa’s arrival. President Franklin Roosevelt changed that, with much prodding from retailers, by proclaiming the official date of Thanksgiving as one week earlier.
In the first year, that put Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday, but in the next two years it was deemed to be the third Thursday. Much ridicule ensued, not to mention confusion — some states still acknowledged the traditional date, while others went along with FDR.
A joint resolution of Congress, in 1941, established Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November and everybody planned their Christmas shopping according to that schedule (until the somewhat recent trend toward stocking shelves with holiday merchandise as soon as Halloween ends, which — as noted — makes even less sense now since the urgency to accomplish your shopping early has been mitigated by the internet).
Bottom line? There are, indeed, 29 shopping days until Christmas but, in this digital age, every sane person knows you only need about a week. Relax. It isn’t even December yet. If you feel a need to hurry, it’s only your paranoia speaking. Have another leftover turkey sandwich and a nap.
In this digital age, every sane person knows you only need about a week. Relax. It isn’t even December yet.