...when stores suddenly double their profits, the postal service handles twice as many packages, and there is a surprising increase in the purchase of small evergreens.  Christmas is rapidly approaching.

As you stood in an amazingly slow line at Barnes & Noble with a book that you had just purchased for your grandmother, did you ever wonder exactly how much more the store was selling than they would sell on a normal day?  There's a big difference.  In 2005, book stores sold 96% more in December than in November.  Other stores also showed big leaps in that period.  Jewelry stores led the way, with a 174% increase, while sporting goods stores showed a 67% increase and electronics stores benefited from a 54% increase.

With some stores making a quarter of their annual profits in one month, more employees are needed.  Stores hired an estimated 186,400 extra employees from October to December.

There are many stores to choose from when searching for the perfect present.  149,831 clothing and accessory stores; 9,360 department stores; 10,345 hobby, toy and game shops; 33,956 gift, novelty and souvenir shops; 22,902 sporting goods stores; 28,772 jewelry stores; and 11,218 book stores were open across the nation in 2004.

Someone has to make all of the Christmas-related items seen in these stores, and they're not all from the U.S.  605 million dollars worth of Christmas ornaments arrived in the U.S. from China between January and August of this year.  That's up from the 561 million dollars worth of ornaments that were imported in the same time frame last year.

With everyone buying Christmas presents for their friends and relatives, there is naturally a big increase in shipping.  The postal service handles twice as many packages and letters as is normal between Thanksgiving and Christmas--20 billion, to be exact.  Aproximately 1.9 billion of these letters are Christmas cards, while one million packages are delivered daily between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The most packages and letters in 2005 were sent on December 19, while the peak delivery day was December 21.

Christmas also sees Christmas-tree stands sprouting up everywhere, from grocery store parking lots to baseball fields.  Approximately 20.8 million Christmas trees were cut in 2002, 6.5 million of which came from Oregon.  (You never knew a third of all U.S. Christmas trees came from Oregon, did you?)  However, Christmas-tree sales are falling, as many families are opting for reusable artificial trees.  Christmas tree farmers made $506 million dollars in 2004 and only $485 million in 2005.  Nevertheless, that's a lot of money.

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