Nationally, US:-Citing a sluggish economy and projecting below-par quarterly numbers, major retailers have decided to boost their flagging sales by beginning their pre-holiday sales for 2009.
Dan Chode, VP of Sales for the Wal-Mart corporation, said it’s the option that makes the most sense. “Sure, some grinches might claim that we’re jumping the gun a little bit, but this is an idea that has been coming for a while now. Over the past several years, we’ve creeped our Christmas sales further and further into the warm-weather months… and in the process, we’ve moved other holidays along with it. I mean, we had Halloween candy in the aisles by Labor Day, and our ‘back to school’ sales were happening in mid-June. 
Heck, we had our Valentine’s displays go up two weeks ago.”
This is a significant gamble on most companies’ parts, as they must now try to correctly predict next season’s “must-have” gift. In years past, such essential items as the Xbox 360, Blu-ray disc players, and Furbies have been in demand. A year in advance, it’s tough to stock shelves with what the people will want. Discount retailer K-mart has decided to put artist’s renderings of projected toys on the shelves, which can be redeemed next year for an actual product.
Tech retail giant Best Buy has taken another route, simply putting blank tags on their shelves with prices attached. One can buy a must-have item-to-be-determined, then redeem their purchase next season. Shopper Jane Patrick loves the idea, and has already bought a $300 ticket for her husband. “I think maybe it’ll wind up being an iPod or something, but who knows? A digital camera would be good as well. I just hope it’s not one of those Roomba things.”
Other accommodations have been made to make sure everything runs smoothly. The chocolates in the 2009 Advent calendars have been injected with formaldehyde to keep them preserved. The US Post Office has issued Christmas stamps at their projected 2009 value, which is expected to be $1.29 per stamp.
Several noted economists have wondered about the fiscal prudence of these moves, since many shoppers have “Christmas club” accounts at their banks, where money is set aside for holiday spending, but not released to the consumer until November. However, retailers are not concerned. “This is the new economy,” said Dan Chode. “We live in a world where investors, companies, even the US government borrow against future projected values to spend now. It’s the ‘spend now, screw the future’ approach to economics.”
In order to help stimulate the economy, the White House today announced that an executive order had been drafted, requiring all radio stations to go to a 24-hour Christmas music format from now until mid-April, at which point retailers would take a month off before beginning their 2010 holiday campaigns. It also suspends all television broadcasts of sitcoms and dramas in order to make room for more Christmas specials… and endless loops of jewelry-store commercials.