Sarah Palin has a new book out, denouncing the war on Christmas:
In Good Tidings, Great Joy, she describes the wretched efforts of pesky atheists, who are spoiling all the seasonal fun, trying to disinvite Jesus Christ from his own birthday.
While secular partypoopers may pose a great threat nationally – with respect to the former Alaskan governor – in Durango, it’s safe to say there’s no war on Christmas.
Indeed, Christmas is so robust, it’s waging a war on November.
All down Main Avenue, yuletide whatchamacallits have infiltrated storefronts.
Appaloosa Trading Co.’s windows are covered in dangling Christmas lights.
Snowflakes, nutcrackers and a small Christmas tree stare out Durango Coffee Co.’s windows.
A mannequin in a Santa Claus hat beckons passers-by into Casa Décor; the plastic woman stands amid a window festooned with Christmas baubles.
Those wanting to avoid early Christmas immersion should avoid Eureka Clothing and Accessories, which has placed tinsel in its flowerpots.
They should also avoid Gardenswartz Sporting Goods, which displays a Christmas tree, replete with fake snow, as prominently as its Ramboish mannequins.
They shouldn’t go anywhere near the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad depot, where a formidable inflatable Santa stands more than 25 feet tall, glowering down at Durango residents as though we’d all been very naughty.
Bob Kunkel, special events and business coordinator for the city of Durango, said not too long ago, it would have been unimaginable for businesses to push Christmas so shamelessly in mid-November.
“Now, we’re barraged with it before we even get to Thanksgiving. We’re all observing it earlier and earlier,” he said.
Indeed, just days after Halloween, Rite Aid employees moved a giant (somewhat creepy) doll of jolly old St. Nick into its entranceway, whereas Walmart began stocking Christmas decorations in late October.
“Everyone follows the lead of the big retailers,” said Kunkel, “and now Halloween has become a big, heavily promoted holiday – and it’s not even a holiday. It’s an opportunity for retailers to have a sale.”
He said Thanksgiving is all but swallowed up by the shopping tentpoles of Halloween and Christmas, in part because its central message – taking pause to reflect on life with gratitude, humility and peace – is difficult to monetize.
“Thanksgiving is more about celebrating bounty and food and family. Christmas is more about consumerism,” he said.
Indeed, judging by their merchandise, it’s not clear whether Rite Aid and Walmart know Thanksgiving exists. North City Market, on the other hand, is a lone corporate voice, enthusiastically showering its foyer with turkey cartoons.
Jack Llewellyn, director of the Durango Chamber of Commerce, said he is a traditionalist, and would prefer Christmas promotions to start after Thanksgiving. But he said he understood why so many big chains have been so eager to elongate the Christmas shopping season: They calculate that customers will spend more on presents if the holiday’s imminence is impressed upon them with constant subliminal (and explicit) reinforcement.
Yet retailers’ zeal for Christmas can go to extremes.
For instance, at Starbucks Coffee on Friday, employees were wearing bracingly red long-sleeve T-shirts, embellished with snowflakes.
On the back of the shirts was the message, “It only happens once a year” – a statement that seems patently befuddled fully six weeks before Christmas Eve.
At Maria’s Bookshop, owner Andrea Avantaggio said they try to exercise restraint, only decking out the store with boughs of holly after Thanksgiving.
She said the store usually does a Thanksgiving window, but it lasts about a week. “We try not to dwell on it,” she said.
She said Maria’s encouraged its employees to get their Christmas shopping done early, so they could focus on customers’ needs.
But she said it was difficult to know whether retailers’ incessant Christmas promotions had any effect on customers’ actual Christmas shopping habits, which tend to be immutable.
“We have people who did it in the summer. They come in, they’re relaxed, they found the perfect thing,” she said.
“Then there are the people who start their shopping at 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve – and that’s the way they do it,” she said.
Tim Wheeler, owner of Durango Coffee Co., said his staff had “Christmassified” the store last week because Thanksgiving fell so late this year.
He said last year, when Thanksgiving fell earlier in November, he could discern some Christmas fatigue among patrons come mid-December.
“I think there is a risk of starting it too early: people get kind of turned off. But the thing about holiday shopping is that there’s a deadline. It’s like Mother’s Day in Florida – if you miss it, there’s not a lot of opportunity to make it up. So if people are inclined to purchase gifts for their loved ones, they have to do it by Christmas,” he said.
But he said it was difficult to overstate the importance of Christmas to the store’s solvency.
“December is by far our biggest sales month – every year – bigger even than July, when we have all those tourists in town,” he said.
Every year, he steels himself and buys tons of inventory – including gourmet cooking gadgets, porcelain flatware and state-of-the-art knives – and endures December with white-knuckles, hoping it sells.
“Every year, despite my nervousness, people come in and buy it. Then my worry fades to fatigue.”
He said the store’s Christmas décor rarely attracts the ire of scrooges.
“If they were in that mood, they probably wouldn’t come in,” he said reasonably.
Employees have no such choice.
Two baristas working in the Durango outlet of a national coffee chain company brewed up pumpkin spice and gingerbread lattes on Thursday. One said the Christmas soundtrack CD was already in rotation.
“It’s driving me crazy – it’s not even Thanksgiving yet,” said the other employee, who spoke off the record because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
cmcallister@durangoherald.com
