Uhm, where are the Jesuses?

So, in doing my part to buoy the sluggish American economy this weekend by purchasing gifts to exchange at our early-winter festival, I noticed that while there are blow-up snowmen and blow-up Santas and blow-up Ruldoph the Red-Nosed-Reindeer (not to mention the blow-up snow globe with the snowmen and Santas and Ruldoph the Red-Nosed-Reindeer all on a carousel in some sort of mixed-metaphor nirvana), there are no blow-up Jesuses (Jesi?). Not a one.

There is no blow-up manger, and no blow-up Mary or Joseph, or blow-up Wise Men, or blow-up North Star, or blow-up lowing cattle or blow-up little drummer boy. Oh no. Because that would be unholy or something.

This is so much more befitting the season, dontcha think?

P.S. Get yourselves to see Happy Feet. Though I don't recommend it for younger children (probably good for ages 8-ish and up).

P.P.S. We wound up just going out to CompUSA's Thanksgiving-night sale. Got a computer for $199 after rebates, and then found out there was some programming error on the receipts, so it looks as if there is a $150 rebate the purchaser isn't eligible for. Apparently, CompUSA is aware of the problem and will be issuing a work-around for it in the next couple of days.

But we avoided any early Black Friday sales, instead, only cruised to Best Buy later Friday evening. There was hardly anybody there; in fact, it looked like there were more employees that customers.

Oh, and we went to Cool Springs Galleria this afternoon. I have been there on Tuesday mornings when there have been more people.

I am a little concerned that the holiday sales numbers are going to catch up with real wage growth. By that I mean that holiday sales numbers might fall.