Thanksgiving is past and Keith and I had a pleasant enough time at my mother and father’s. No agenda, just cooking and eating. As my father returned thanks, I must say, it struck us deeply that we had all of us plenty to be thankful for.
So the holiday season is well and truly upon us, but, despite a thankful Thanksgiving, I don’t feel particularly convivial- conviviality being a feature, I understand, that is an essential part of the holiday season. The why of this is complicated and has a lot to do with money- my own, of course, about which I am inordinately fond. Absence, they say, makes the heart grow fonder, and it is the dearth of a bit of the ready every December that makes me more than a bit cranky. This is an expensive month always, with tax payments due, Christmas presents to buy (I wonder if my nephews would be satisfied with an orange apiece? Since they all live in southern California, a lump of coal to keep them warm over Christmas wouldn’t be very useful. Besides, I don’t know of any coal merchants who would sell it by the lump.) Moreover, sales activity in our galleries, if not actually grinding to a halt, slows considerably. Clearly, our clients are faced with some of the same financial vicissitudes as we are- tax payments, Christmas presents, and so forth. Our clients’ perception of their wealth? Let’s not talk about market performance just at the moment and live for at least today in blissful ignorance, shall we? In what might be considered counterintuitive, designer activity slows to a crawl, too. The triple pedestal dining table and long set of chairs to go around it, perfect for holiday entertaining, are not on the shopping list until early in the new year, when design projects resume and clients have deferred year end bonus checks to pay for them.
Although this so far, my twenty or so devoted readers, might sound like the preamble to the holiday schedule of Scrooge, Marley and Company, you do presumably have some understanding why I am less than convivial during this month, and particularly right now, faced as we are with the Jackson Square holiday walk. We have been in business at this location for six years now, and have participated in six holiday walks, and never, and I mean never, has it brought into our galleries anyone other than people looking for hospitality (read ‘free hooch’). It used to astonish me that someone would spend $3.00 on bus fare to come here to drink a $1.50 glass of wine, until I noted how many $1.50 glasses of wine some of these people (‘free-loaders’ is our familiar term) were consuming. As a sidebar, a year or two ago, to add ambience, we actually hired Dickens-attired ladies and gentlemen to stroll the street. What we found, unfortunately, was that these characters must have all taken their cue from London’s Gin Lane, given how drunk most of them were when they got here. The result of all this, the event is now by invitation only- and sans Dickens characters- which sort of defeats the purpose of a promotional activity meant to bring current and prospective customers into the neighborhood.
Interestingly, a few of the merchants here- actually, only one- has taken profound exception to the consensus decision to limit the numbers of guests for our street event, arguing that times being the way they are, we ought to widen our outreach. This merchant does, as it happens, have the largest mailing list of any of the participating dealers, and also, due to the price of her material, probably has the greatest opportunity to make a few sales on the night. That being said, she most probably has a point, in macroeconomic terms, in that a recession feeds upon itself. Slow sales results in a lack of business promotion, which brings a contraction of sales activity, which further reduces business promotion, which perpetuates and exacerbates slow sales. That convoluted sentence may sound nearly Jamesian, but it is meant to communicate how a slow economy moves in a downward spiral that would be helped by positively promoting Jackson Square.
So, you will find Keith and me greeting all our guests, whether our invitees or those who trade with other dealers. If our smiles seem a little forced, bear in mind that we are participating in this street event not primarily for Chappell & McCullar but for the greater good. Who knows? We might even become convivial and have more to be thankful for this holiday season than just a good turkey dinner with the home folks.