The Best Christmas

As the Christmas shopping season reached its halfway point last week, Americans were already assured of waking up to an eye-popping pile of packages under their trees. Retailers are reporting sizzling gains in sales that by the end of next week will add up to the biggest Christmas ever. In line with the recent consumer spending spree (TIME, Oct. 23), department-store sales for 1972 are running 9% ahead of those for the previous year, with some large merchants ringing up gains of 13%. Discounting for the 3.4% rise in price tags caused by inflation over the past year, that would mean a real increase in sales of at least 5.6% for most stores--a very good showing.

U.S. shoppers, who stashed away an extraordinarily high share of their income during the recession, are unloading some of it on almost every kind of merchandise. In clothing, says Lee Abraham, merchandising chief of the May department stores, "we are calling this the year of the sweater," because of the now popular "layered look"--calling for sleeveless pullovers to be worn on top of regular sweaters and other multiple-sweater combinations. The strong housing market of the past two years has opened the door to more home-furnishing sales, which the National Retail Merchants Association estimates have risen 13% from last year. Marvin Traub, president of New York's Bloomingdale's, notes that one of the fastest-growing merchandise groups is adult games, a sure sign that gift buyers are no longer interested only in essential items, though the "back to basics" trend is still strong among many consumers. Make-it-yourself wine and cheese kits are selling well.

Some of this year's boost is coming from the calendar: the post-Thanksgiving scramble began two days earlier in 1972 than last year and will span an additional weekend. But most of it seems to be the result of old-fashioned consumer confidence, based on the booming economy, the bullish stock market and, most important, a greater degree of job security than in the past few years.

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