The Lad and I decided to do some shopping over the weekend.
As regular Mullsters know, I am not a gigantic fan of shopping. And, I am not a gigantic fan of crowds. Therefore, the prospect of going to a major mall on the Saturday before Christmas was something about which I was less than excited.
A couple of phone calls to coordinate schedules had us heading at mid-day toward Pentagon City - a mall which is across the road from its namesake building - the Pentagon (although on the side opposite the damage) - is on a subway line, is on an Interstate highway feeder (I-395), and is reachable through a tunnel from ANOTHER shopping center which includes a Best Buy, a Borders Books, and a Costco.
Suffice it to say, that by the time we headed up the street to enter the parking garage I was in full projectile sweat mode. The mall was going to be too crowded, with shoppers too frenzied, pawing over stock which was too depleted; harrying employees who were too busy; Too, too, too.
Turning into the parking garage, I found a parking place in about 13 seconds. And it wasn't just good parking karma. I had my choice of three different spaces, all on the ground (preferred) level, at the end of the mall I needed just outside the Nordstrom entrance.
In the mall itself, there were a lot of people, but it wasn't anywhere near a leaving-the-stadium-after-the-game-elbow-to-elbow experience. There was plenty of merchandise available. To my absolutely untrained eye, the prices seemed pretty good. The clerks were friendly and helpful.
Good for us. Not so good, though, for Nordstrom, or Joseph Banks, or Circuit City, or Brooks Brothers, or most of the other retailers according to reports on the business pages.
We make a mistake celebrating the downturn in the retail sector. People are harmed by poor sales - not just the store owners and employees, but everyone back up the food chain, from the people who create the raw materials; to the people who make the items; to the people who drive the trucks to get all the pieces and parts from place to place.
Most say that this "weakness in the retail sector" is a combination of 9/11, warmer-than-usual weather, and the sharp rise in unemployment (which might not be a third reason, but one more consequence of the first reason).
Perhaps, though, there is a different, better, reason.
Perhaps store sales are down because - at least for this year - our commitment to, and love for, each other is not calculable on a spread sheet.
Perhaps, we are measuring the value our relationships not by the height of the pile under the tree, but the depth of the feeling in our hearts.
Since 9/11 we have all seen little signs of encroaching civility:
- We tend to let other people go first at the four-way-stop intersection; and they tend to wave in thanks as they proceed through;
- We are more likely to let the person with just a couple of items scoot in ahead of us at the check out line in the grocery store. We are not quite as busy nor quite as important as we thought we were three months ago;
- A baby's cries in a restaurant now bring more smiles of understanding from those at nearby tables than heavy sighs and eye-rolls of displeasure.
We all know someone who was with us last year but who will not be with us tomorrow. We also know, with great confidence, that someone will be with us next year - a new son or daughter, a nephew or niece, a new grandchild, or a newcomer to a friend's family - who is not yet with us this.
So, Christmas, like so many other activities, is different this year. Smaller but more intense.
From the Galens: Have yourself a merry little Christmas.
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