Who is ready for CHRISTMAS???? I am almost ready! I am halfway through the Christmas shopping frenzy! Every year since the economy has been down I’ve been hearing people say how this year they are truly going to cut back on the gift spending, I actually say it myself. But it’s so hard to do it! Everywhere you go, they have these amazing sales and I just think that because things have discounts that I can get a lot more (and in some cases this is true) but I just end up spending the same amount of money. So in actuality I am not really saving that money, I’m just getting more gifts out of that budget.
I wonder if the advertisement is mainly the reason why we spend so much money during the holidays. We all know those commercials too well, the happy family gathered by the chimney wearing expensive and sometimes not-so-appealing Christmas sweaters, they are having a huge feast, the kids are playing outside in the snow and there’s a ton of gifts under the tree. Who wouldn’t want that? 
So off we go to the stores, maybe get a little carried away with all the Christmas songs playing in the background and we spend a little too much. Next thing you know Christmas is gone and some people are left with the aftermath, like credit card debt. The perfect scenario would probably entail people saving throughout the whole year (even if it’s a small amount that you can put in a jar) so when the time comes to do the shopping you are prepared and you don’t spend outside your budget. It’s easy to say and hard to accomplish.
In fact, numerous people get a head start and go shopping during black Friday. Great deals… And way too many people in one place (if you ask me). But I’ve been reading lately that the best time to shop for huge savings on big items (such as TV’s, game consoles, electronics in general and toys) comes AFTER the holidays. I guess I didn’t give it much thought before since I was too busy spending money before Christmas. I figure the reason a lot of people don’t know this is because we are out of money by the time we get to that point.
So are people REALLY cutting back on holiday spending? According to the LA times they are not. Profit was actually up in 2011 compared to last year. “Shoppers shelled out $52.4 billion from Thanksgiving Day through Sunday, a 16.4% surge from $45 billion last year, according to the National Retail Federation. Each shopper on average spent $398.62, a 9.1% bump from last year.” Besides the thanksgiving weekend, we also had “Cyber Monday” which encourages consumers to buy online during the week after Thanksgiving. 
I think that retailers are a lot more aware that people are not going to spend their money unless they are willing to give the consumers incredible deals. As long as retailers do that, consumers are more likely to spend their money on their merchandise and products and although a lot of people’s wallets are more on the thin side, according to media reports, this Black Friday was the biggest on record.
After the holiday season is over and all it’s said and done, we will know the real numbers and how much our own shopping boosted our badly wounded economy.
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