The almighty make-a-buck mentality is nothing new, and neither is the commercialization of holidays.
Our nation's history--and the world's--is rife with instances of immense wealth born of immoral exploitation. And there's hardly a major celebratory occasion on the calendar that hasn't been tarnished by merchandisers smelling profits.
Flipping through the months, consider the lure of the dollars at play:
Valentine's Day marks the love of money in addition to more organic affections, and set yet another spending record of $18.9 billion in 2015.
Easter is the second best-selling candy holiday in the U.S., the fifth biggest greeting-card holiday and the fourth largest floral holiday. The total retail tab in 2015--$16.4 billion.
The maternal and paternal holidays in May and June tally a combined $33.9 billion in 2015. The gender inequality is warranted: Mother's Day spending, at $21.2 billion, is almost double that of Father's Day, and most dads would agree that moms deserve (and have earned) the extra recognition.
Independence Day doesn't have the gift-giving customs that drive greeting cards and flowers and candy sales, but it invites spending indulgence in both the culinary and pyrotechnic arts. Americans shelled out some $6.6 billion this year on food and fireworks.
The summer bookend holidays are both big travel occasions, with a combined spending total of more than $25 billion--and that doesn't include all the "savings" from the associated Memorial and Labor Day sales.
The fourth-quarter holiday slate is a literal mint. Halloween recently surpassed Easter as the leading candy holiday, and Christmas is the $630-billion-gorilla of the livelong year.
The retail-dominant yuletide season has given merchants gold fever for decades. Christmas's creeping commercialism was criticized in the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street by the wannabe Santa, Alfred, whose day job is being a Macy's janitor.
"Don't care what Christmas stands for, just make a buck, make a buck," he laments about department stores while leaning on his broom.
How little dear old Alfred (or even Mr. Macy himself) knew about real commercialism, e.g., 21st century style.
The main difference nowadays is that many of the traditional barriers to commercial encroachment have been eroded. Today's 24/7 commercials coordinate well with store hours that reach well into the night, often start early and are unfettered from the old blue laws that once provided a weekly respite from all-out commerce.
There is no rest for the weary consumer in 2015, who is relentlessly pursued at every conceivable turn with buying propositions.
Even the sacred veil shielding that single sanctuary day of the fourth quarter--Thanksgiving--has been pierced in the name of Black Friday mania. Several large retailers have opened their doors on Thursday evening in recent years, and the specter of all-day Thanksgiving shopping looms likely among the ghosts of Christmas yet to come.
Amid the avalanche of overblown holiday commercialism, it's easy to become resigned to its conquest.
But then, out of ever-earlier hustle and bustle, comes a small buck against the trend. Instead of pushing jack o'lanterns off the shelves with Christmas ornaments, Nordstrom has a novel idea (or rather, continues a once-honored idea).
The fashion chain has a longstanding policy of not putting up Christmas decorations until the Thanksgiving holiday is over.
That policy predates social media, but a photo of a Nordstrom store sign from 2009 got posted recently on Facebook and Twitter and the rest is viral history.
The sign has a simple headline:
"We won't be decking our halls until Friday, November 27."
"Why?" the sign continues, "Well, we just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving."
Some holiday-harried families might view Nordstrom's words as a slap, since overlapping seasonal decor is often a necessity for time-strapped parents working two, three or four jobs to pay for Christmas.
My take is it's a wholly nonjudgmental message to individuals, whom the retailer hopes to please, not offend.
What Nordstrom is trying to do is capitalize on survey data that consistently show public pushback to the expanding holiday season.
Even if we choose to decorate our own homes early, we don't want profiteers purloining Thanksgiving.
Store-brand loyalty is waning under online competition from Internet giants like Amazon and eBay. Nordstrom seems to hope that by sharing sentiments with consumers it can realistically differentiate itself from other store chains that secretly hope Black Friday's frenzy will bleed all the way back to Thursday morning--and beyond.
Main Street business districts everywhere are seeking ways to compete with malls and retail chains, and there may be a lesson in this Nordstrom example.
Trying to "out-commercialize" the moneyed masters is a formula for defeat. A better approach for local independent retailers might be to unite in adopting a "Thanksgiving first" policy.
It'd be interesting to see if a downtown district or shopping community would get the positive likes, shares and retweets Nordstrom is enjoying.
If so, that kind of publicity is priceless.
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Dana D. Kelley is a freelance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial on 11/13/2015