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They are counting the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which were as few this year as they ever get.

Regardless of the number of shopping days, relatively few consumers start their shopping until after Thanksgiving. Many put it off as long as possible because they have been trained that deals are going to happen if you only wait long enough. People are not going to do their Xmas shopping in January, except perhaps for themselves. Thus regardless of the number of days available, the shopping has to occur withint that period or be lost. The number of days is ONLY relevent in that it defines how much pressure the stores are under to meet their goals. Its not like fast food where the number of meals is proportional to the number of days. The number of people shopped for and the amount spent should be the same regardless of how few days you have to do the shopping in. I didnt start until the weekend before Xmas.

My wife and DIL go Christmas shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, and they buy a lot of Christmas presents. Then my wife and I make one trip to Toys Are Us to buy items that our grandkids have wanted and weren't bought on that post Thanksgiving trip.

After that most of our presents are bought on the internet. Probably 70% of our total presents we gave to others, were bought on the internet.

Our three and half year old grand daughter has cracked the code all ready. She and her grandmother will go over a catalog for hours. Then, she comes to me sits on my lap and hands me a pen to mark on the catalog, what she wants from my puter. That takes a couple of minutes.

One of her east coast relatives sent money, and she wanted some specific items for her dolls. She and her Mom couldn't find them in their local stores. That night after a lot of shopping, she woke up at about midnight and told her Mom not to worry because Papa would find them on his puter and get them for her. She was right.

I had done most of my shopping prior to Thanksgiving. I watch for bargains year round - 6 grandchildren makes this important.

I was in my local WalMart early one morning just before Christmas -last minute change in a gift. The manager came over the intercom complementing the staff for meeting their sales forecast. Some areas of the country may not have done as well as others. Around here it was much like any other.