‘Holiday shopping’ has arrived, yet the depressing part of retail yet to come

Many of us will indulge our desire to play “Santa Claus” in a few weeks, hoping we can find just the right present to give that special someone in our lives.

Holiday shoppers will see similar scenes along State Street. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

Even though the more-realistic happening will be a rush of items being returned to the store come Dec. 26 for exchange, as people wonder how much our relatives and friends don’t comprehend what we like.

WHY ELSE WOULD they buy that ugly sweater or stinky cologne (or perfume) for us? How could they possibly think we’d enjoy that!

It’s “Black” Friday, and I’ve lost count of all the advertising fliers I’ve received in recent weeks – informing me of all the special sales intended to get us off our turkey-stuffed behinds and out to their stores. Where we’re expected to spend our money in great abundance in anticipation of the Christmas holidays of just four weeks off.

But back to the Christmas event, which will motivate a lot of shopping – with retailers trying to make us think its our patriotic duty to turn out and endure the ridiculous crowds at stores anticipated for Friday.

This is, supposedly, the time of year when stores actually meet all the expenses of having operated this year – meaning that any income generated through sales from this point on will determine just HOW profitable 2018 turns out to be.

Will window decorations be replicated?

I KNOW THERE are a lot of people who took holiday-season jobs in retail, hoping to make some extra money. They’re counting on all those sales to help generate a slightly-larger paycheck than the minimum wage salary provides. They work on commission, after all.

In fact, I still remember a time when I did such a thing. It was the holiday season of 1987. I was a fresh college graduate who had a few writing gigs providing something of a freelance income. But a few extra bucks couldn’t hurt.

That was the holiday season I worked in the men’s department of a Carson, Pirie Scott store – one out in the suburbs that ceased to exist even before the whole chain came tumbling down earlier this year.

I wasn’t much of a salesman, usually because I didn’t have the heart to care if people actually bought anything. The same person who could easily get motivated to chase a political geek to demand answers just didn’t care what shirt style one preferred.

How many miss having city's holiday tree in Daley Plaza

BUT MY BIGGEST memories of that holiday season job were the final days when Christmas had passed.

I got to see just how much of the merchandise I had sold to people wound up being despised. I remember getting daily reports of exactly how much the goods that were returned were valued at.

For me, it used to be in negative figures. As in any sales I generated in the days following Christmas were negated by all the merchandise that got returned.

I even recall one woman who had asked my advice on buying a sweater for her brother made a point of coming back to the store to tell me personally how much he hated it! Merry Christmas to you to, lady!

The city's menorah will see its duty in coming weeks

CONSIDER IT PART of the reason why I don’t get enthused much anymore about this part of the holiday season, and why I consider it a part of my routine of maintaining my sanity to avoid any kind of shopping on this Friday.

I think the crowds will be ridiculous. The idea of sudden bargains financially will be greatly-overstated. If anything, I think I would not want to be amidst the chaos when trying to pick out presents for people.

Planning a trip? Airport decorations to see you off

If I actually like them, I’d want to try to get something they’d enjoy, which probably needs a more sane and rational process than people will endure on Friday.

Most definitely not something that’s going to make people feel compelled to go back to the store the final week of December so they can return the ugly charm bracelet or bottle of Aramis I would have picked out for them now.

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Black Friday misery, or sense prevails?

As one who personally detests the concept of holiday-related retail activity (I’ll go ahead and say it, “Bah, Humbug!!!”), I can’t help but feel some sense in joy in the anecdotal activity I’ve seen with the post-Thanksgiving Christmas holiday shopping that supposedly is taking place Friday.

From what I'm told, Macy's decorations similar to these erected last year. Photos by Gregory Tejeda

I’ve seen a lot of people on Facebook posting their own observations of how the lines at shopping centers and stores don’t seem as ridiculously long this time.

THIS MAY BE an instance of me hoping that by writing something, I make it true regardless of what is really happening.

But I know when I ran an errand Friday that required I physically go to an AT&T store (and yes, they tried giving me the hard-sell to contemplate buying a new phone, even though the one I have now is barely over a year old), I was shocked at how few people were out and about.

The particular store I went to in suburban Chicago is part of a larger shopping area, and shares a parking lot with a Best Buy store – one of those big boxes that typically is particularly gross in trying to sway people in to shop now with so-called holiday retail bargains.

The traffic appeared to be little more than what would be seen on any other Friday mid-day. It didn’t feel like the “Black Friday” holiday at all. Does that mean the retailers who supposedly don’t clear into the black financially for the year until now are still in the red?

Art Institute Chgo's gift to Midwest?

SHOULD WE FEEL sorry for them that the crowds of shoppers trying to find that so-called perfect give to give to Uncle Frankie so he can exchange it for something else during come the late December post-Christmas (he’ll claim it’s the wrong color, but his real objection would be that the XXL size you got him fits perfectly, but he doesn’t want to admit he’s THAT big) aren’t quite so enormous?

Or could it be that many people are coming to the same realization I came to years ago – trying to deal with the holiday shopping crowds on this particular day truly stinks! There are better ways to shop without following the leader – being led by the nose by those advertisements and coupons that retailers put in the Thursday newspapers (and that some people tackily try to steal for free – while leaving the actual editorial content unsold).

A scene we no longer see in downtown Chicago proper

As for those who haven’t learned, perhaps the computer problems experienced Friday by Macy’s (a.k.a., the dirty rats who stole the name “Marshall Field’s” from the Chicago scene) will sway more.

The Friday news reports tell of glitches that prevent people trying to use their Macy’s charge cards from being able to buy anything. Although it seems the problems arise for anybody who tries to buy more than $100 – which is exactly the kind of person Macy’s wants out today (they could care less about the guy looking to buy a package of boxer shorts – which can be as little as a $17.99 purchase if one is particularly cheap).

IT WAS CASH-ONLY at Macy’s, which is such an anti-21^st Century attitude (albeit one that I try to follow whenever possible) that I’m sure many would-be followers will be incredibly offended.

So much so they’ll storm off to Kohl’s or J.C. Penney’s or whatever other option they happen to have available to them.

It’s a bit of that holiday shopping frustration that I wish could convince people there has to be a more rational way to do this than think there’s actually something special about this day-after-Thanksgiving that requires us to shop!

It makes me think to the old days when the idea of a downtown holiday shopping trip was as much about the spectacle – particularly in Chicago where many still mourn the loss of Field’s because the old State Street store’s windows no longer have those unique (remember Uncle Mistletoe?) decorations.

How many remember Uncle Mistletoe's wife, Aunt Holly? Photo provided by Chuckman's Chicago Nostalgia

THE WINDOWS STILL exist under the Macy’s brand name, but I’ve already read Facebook rants about how Macy’s has desecrated the whole concept with their generic decorations.

Which may be some people taking the whole concept far too seriously.

But now that “Black Friday” has come and gone, maybe we all now can relax just a bit – something we all probably can use after the stress of the Thanksgiving festivities and the Christmas/Hanukkah/whichever holiday you do activities that will come up in coming weeks.

A bit of relaxation might be what we as a society needs – just before the moment that President Donald J. Trump decides to screw up a national mood of peace by going on yet another irrational Tweet-from-a-Twit rant about how somebody is committing “War” on the Christmas holiday spirit.

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Will Thanksgiving meal someday come at shopping mall food court?

My brother, Chris, and I plan to spend this holiday Thursday visiting our father and step-mother, who plan to visit her sister who lives in the Beverly neighborhood.


There will be assorted family and friends present – a typical-enough Thanksgiving holiday experience, I suppose.

YET THE PART that may make it the typical experience is the fact that I have been told my step-brother won’t be on hand to share in a turkey dinner. His absence is due to the newest trend of this day – he’s going to be shopping.

He wants to take advantage of all those sales specially scheduled for Thursday – the day before Black Friday.

Before anyone presumes I’m about to bad-mouth a family member, I’m not. For it seems that what really is happening is that all this holiday shopping is becoming more and more the norm for our society.

I’m wondering how long it will be before it is the people who insist on gathering together for a meal who will be considered the aberration on “Thanksgiving” day.

SO MUCH FOR the federal holiday that Abraham Lincoln approved as a day of thanks, based off the imagery of the pilgrims who settled in Massachusetts back in 1620.

Now, it’s a day to pay homage to the “god” that is Sam Walton, offering up all kinds of gadgets at his Wal-mart stores located everywhere in the country.

Now anybody who has read my commentary in the past knows I don’t think much of this trend. To me, the crowds that gather for the ritual big shopping days connected to the winter holidays are just too annoying to put up with.

I’ll be looking for the lulls in activity (as few and miniscule as they will be) to try to pick out gifts for the upcoming Hanukkah and Christmas holidays (I know people who celebrate each).

BUT NOT EVERYBODY feels the same. I have heard my sister-in-law go on and on about the joys of finding a special holiday price by being willing to put up with those same crowds that annoy me.

So the fact that many businesses are not waiting until early Friday to begin the holiday season (some stores literally are going to be open for the bulk of Thursday) made it so that I wasn’t surprised to learn my step-brother and his family will be amongst those shoppers.

My sympathy goes to the people who have to work at places like Best Buy, Target, Sears, Toys ‘r’ Us and other major chains who have decided to be open for business on Thursday. Any semblance of a ‘day off’ gets flushed away to help enhance the financial bottom line.

The shopping mentality even exists in Ferguson, Mo., the St. Louis suburb that has had some outbursts and vandalism in the wake of a local police officer being absolved of criminal responsibility in the shooting death of a black man.

THE ACTIVISTS WHO have been leading protests that have turned into some looting have threatened a more peaceful, but also more threatening to the financial bottom line, action – a boycott of any holiday shopping during the upcoming weekend.

Considering that retail operations go on about how this weekend is key to their level of profitability for the year, NOT shopping is harmful.

So maybe I can claim to be a revolutionary, of sorts, by not shopping Thursday or Friday. Although it would be an exaggeration of great significance. Maybe I’m just too lazy to trek out to the crowded stores and would rather gather with family for a communal meal.

As for my step-brother, I don’t know if he’ll ever read this. But since I likely won’t see him Thursday, I’ll just have to use this commentary to wish him a “Happy Thanksgiving,” and hope he found some special price that made the way worthwhile for him.

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