Real Christmas

In the run-up to Christmas, Macy’s is pulling an all-nighter at all its stores in the region.

The flagship department store in Manhattan’s Herald Square and seven area branches will be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week in the four-day stretch before Christmas.

The shop-til-you-drop-a-thon begins at 7 a.m. Friday and lasts until 6 p.m. Christmas Eve.

Macy’s says the idea was tested last year at a store in Queens and was so successful it was expanded this year to its stores in Manhattan, Yonkers, New Jersey and Long Island.

Macy’s stores usually close between 9:30 p.m. and midnight, depending on the branch.

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The last minute will be a crucial one for U.S. retailers looking to make holiday sales as data released on Tuesday, one week before Christmas, show that consumers continue to procrastinate and that last week’s wicked weather stymied holiday shopping.

For the week ended December 15, sales at U.S. retail chain stores open at least a year rose 2.1 percent, the smallest year-over-year advance since June 23, according to data from the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities LLC.

“ICSC-UBS household surveys continue to show that consumers are completing their holiday season shopping slower than at comparable times in prior years,” the ICSC said in a note.

The group said that “to the chagrin of retailers,” consumers are making fewer visits to stores due to the high price of gasoline.

The holiday season, the crucial one for retailers, typically hinges on last-minute shoppers.

But this year that trend is even more pronounced, as consumers, contending with rising food and fuel prices, seek out deeper discounts from retailers closer to Christmas.

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When it comes to Christmas presents, Stacey Smith was stumped over what to give to her husband’s grandmother.

“Especially an older person … they really have everything they need,” Smith said.

But now she’s found something that fits perfectly — the “gift of health” through a medical gift card.

“She can use it towards her prescriptions and her medical bills or anything like that,” Smith said.

This gift card can be used for doctors’ visits or deductibles, prescription co-pays, contact lenses and even elective surgery.

“It’s a first of its kind; no one has ever offered a gift card like this,” said Kim Bellard of givewell.com.

The card is issued by Visa, so it can be used anywhere Visa is accepted for health-related services. They are not sold in stores and need to be purchased online or over the phone for up to $5,000.

“The peak audience we believe though is women 35-50, the famous sandwich generation,” Bellard said. “So, they’ve got parents that have health needs, and they’ve got a spouse that has health needs, and older children going off to college or living on their own that have health needs.”

How does the card impact medical deductions? The person who uses it gets any eligible write-off.

“Be sure to record how much you spent on that card because that is a legitimate medical expense that you can use when you fill out your taxes,” said Jack Gillis of the Consumer Federation of America.

And if you’re buying the card ask the typical gift card questions.

“Check out the fees, check out the expiration date, check out what happens if you lose the card,” Gillis said.

Smith is already considering picking up another one.

“We’re actually thinking about getting one for my mother who wants to join a gym and you can use it for a gym membership,” Smith said.

As with many gift cards, this one come with a fee — $5 plus whatever you load onto the card.

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What do you do with a real Christmas tree gone dry? Is there really a way to reverse the sad rigor mortis that overcomes all trees after they have been cut? To one family in Wales, the answer is simple: Viagra.

No, I’m not making this up. Viagra is the cure for what ails your sagging…tree. Check this out.

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In Italy they have no Christmas trees, instead they decorate small wooden pyramids with fruit.

In Caracas, the capital city of Venezuela, it is customary for the streets to be blocked off on Christmas eve so that the people can roller-skate to church.

An artificial spider and web are often included in the decorations on Ukrainian Christmas trees. A spider web found on Christmas morning is believed to bring good luck.

It is a British Christmas tradition that a wish made while mixing the Christmas pudding will come true only if the ingredients are stirred in a clockwise direction.

A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.

Sending red Christmas cards to anyone in Japan constitutes bad etiquette, since funeral notices there are customarily printed in red.

In Norway on Christmas Eve, all the brooms in the house are hidden because long ago it was believed that witches and mischievous spirits came out on Christmas Eve and would steal their brooms for riding.

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Walmart isn’t waiting until the day after Thanksgiving. They want it now. Walmart isn’t playing games this year with websites who break news of their ads early either. They’re telling everyone first. Walmart is take Christmas serious this year and they want you to know it.

Wal-Mart will offer black-Friday prices three weeks early when the retailer unveils secret in-store specials: extraordinary prices on five of the most sought after gifts this season. Understanding that more and more consumers are using the internet to comparison shop, Wal-Mart plans to reveal online a round of unbeatable savings on Thursday. The items will be available in stores beginning Friday morning, November 2 as the merchant officially opens special Christmas shops.

Visit Walmart’s “secret” web page by clicking here. A 50″ plasma TV for $998? Available right now. A $350 laptop? Get it now.

How smart is this?

It’s brilliant. Given Wally’s demographic breaking this ad the first weekend of the month will give their buyers plenty of incentive to spend month-end paychecks. The values are Walmart trademarks and it clearly sets them aside. Unlike JCPenneys and similar retailers who hold “door-busting” events now year round this sale screams value and it screams Christmas.

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U.S. Christmas shoppers may spend more this year than last year, a Gallup Poll indicated Monday.

The poll, conducted Oct. 4-7, found U.S. shoppers plan to spend an average of $909 on Christmas gifts this season — $2 more than a similar forecast at this time last year, the Gallup Organization said.

Gallup cautioned that last year’s mid-October average estimate fell to $826 by mid-November.

If the spending estimate holds up through December it would possibly be enough to make this shopping season better than average, Gallup said. And if spending drops between now and November by as much as it did in 2006, the figure would still be at the upper end of the range seen in recent years, Gallup said.

Some 35 percent of adults nationwide said they would spend $1,000 or more on gifts, Gallup said. Twenty-seven percent said they would spend $500 to $999. Thirty percent planned to spend less than $500.

Eight percent offered no estimate, including some who said they did not celebrate Christmas.

The telephone poll of 1,010 national adults, age 18 and older, had a maximum margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, so differences of less than that amount are statistically insignificant.

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