Nathan Hardin
nhardin@salisburypost.com
The Christmas rush always brings a mixture of feelings about the state of the economy, but most feel this Christmas may actually be a little merrier than in recent years past.
Kim Cameron, a J.C. Penney customer service representative at the Salisbury Mall store, explained that “even though the economy still isn’t good, I feel like people are happier.”
She said customers seemed to be in a good mood, despite worries about the economy and jobs, and she hadn’t encountered any stressed-out shoppers.
Christmas tree sales are down tremendously, though, and trees are now being offered at a sale price of 50 percent off or more.
“Our volume has been half of what its typically been in the last five or six years,” said Neal Hatfield of Rouse Ridge Trees out of Ashe County, who was selling trees off Faith Road, near the Old Navy store. “Saturday evening we dropped the price considerably.”
But low spending doesn’t necessarily represent the poor economy, as Alivia McLaughlin explained while shopping at Kohl’s Tuesday afternoon. The store was filled with shoppers, and most of the checkout registers had lines of people.
“I’m probably spending less than last Christmas,” she said, “but it’s just for personal reasons, not because of the economy.”
Deal Safrit, owner of The Literary Bookpost, explained that on the whole, the holiday rush has been much better this year.
“It’s been a steady week. Compared to last Christmas we’re doing much better and even better than Chrismas 2007.”