Stores need holiday sales
By CINDY WHITCOME Assistant Campus Editor
Ringing Christmas bells and Santa's "Ho Ho Ho" are familiar Christmas sounds, but there is one sound that holiday greetings are conscious of—the ring of the cash register.
University Daily Kansan, December 9, 1980 Page 11
The commercialization of Christmas has kept the celebration alive in modern times, but it is making people lose sight of the spiritual meaning of Christmas, according to Jack Bremer, director of the Ecumenical Christian Ministries Center.
"There is no doubt that Christmas has become commercialized," he said. "I know it's an easy way by an industry that has its biggest selling season during this time."
Radcliffe is the owner of the General Bank store, 1000 Massachusetts St., and 2500 North Washington Blvd.
ACCORDING TO Bob Radcliffe, president of the Downtown Lawrence Association, the Christmas season is the biggest retailing season of the year.
"There are some businesses that do as much as 60 percent of their yearly business expenses."
Bremer said he thought the commercialization occurred through mass advertising that emphasized gift giving instead of the celebration of Christ's birth.
Besides spending money on gifts, there is much money to be spent on the trimming of the roof.
"First of all, there is a lot of emphasis on giving and receiving," he said, "and then there is so much emphasis on extravagance and lavishness."
Christmas trees are a must for almost every household. Susie Hatfield, ad-
vocate to the Office of Public Works, says
Center, 15th and New York streets, said the Christmas season was the center's biggest next to the spring planting season. The store sells both natural and artificial
Natural tree prices range from $15 for a four-foot Scotch pine to $200 for a 10-foot Norway pine.
For the artificial version, prices are higher.
ARTIFICIAL TREES can be decorated, in the FICTIONAL and displayed, but they will never small like the trees on a beach.
One tree at the Garden Center, called a Superleaf tree, stands seven-and-one-half feet tall. In full decoration of 700 multicolor lights, five strands of metal garland and 52 ornaments, the tree costs almost $300.
Artificial trees do not drop needles to be cleaned up after. They are not a fire hazard and they can be used from year to year. That is why most people buy them, according to one clerk at the Garden Center.
Another tree has an extra feature—a revolving stand that plays "Jingle Bells" as it turns the tree. The price of the stand is under $40.
Another less expensive addition to any tree is "The Light and Sounds of Christmas," a rectangular piece of electronic equipment that is attached to the lights of a stair.
The box makes the lights blink on and off to the notes of popular Christmas carols such as "Silent Night" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."
An alternative to picking out a Christmas tree at a nursery or buying an art gallery is to buy a plant in a pot.
Chris Edmonds, who owns Pine Hill Farm with her husband Steve, said most people came to their farm as an event rather than just to get a Christmas tree.
What could be more festive than a paper Santa Claus wrapped in cellophane? The perfect addition to plastic trees he's found peering out of a store window at Everything But Ice.
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