CHARMING PAWSE
A CHRISTMAS TAIL
She would never admit it, if anyone asked. What was the one thing Cat, now living in California, missed about the Midwest? She missed snow.
Oddly, she'd often hated snow when she lived in Indiana. She firmly believed it should only snow from Christmas Eve into Christmas Day, and then be gone. Now she lived in an area where snow and the conditions that brought it were seldom encountered, and she missed the blasted white, wet and cold flakes.
Despite the lack of the cold white stuff on the ground, there was plenty of holiday cheer to be found in Charming. Wreaths and lights adorned the business district's light poles, and many of the shops had been decorated since Labor Day.
Charming Pawse didn't put on its' holiday finery until after Thanksgiving. Cat refused to decorate her shop before then, as there was Hallowe'en, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving to recognize. She hated the commercialism involved in Christmas and wouldn't jump on that bandwagon as a business owner.
Once Thanksgiving passed, the store was decked out in twinkling lights along the walls. A tree was decorated with more lights and small items such as gift cards, seasonally flavored coffee labels, logo bookmarks and coasters. Larger gift items, such as logo mugs, t-shirts and gift baskets rested under the branches.
The sound system had some Christmas music in the rotation, mostly instrumental selections. Her much loved Joe Longstreth Harp Christmas album, Jackie Gleason orchestrated holiday CD and Vince Giardi Peanuts Christmas CD got a lot of play. For good measure, so did one certain vocal Christmas CD by Michael Crawford, who was the first Phantom in the musical 'Phantom of the Opera'.
While there were snowmen and Santa and the reindeer, there were also a couple of manger scenes set up. One rested under the tree, and one of cat figurines sat on a table under the cat window.
Much to the relief of her staff, she decided not to open in the wee small hours of the morning the day after Thanksgiving for 'Black Friday'. Many stores in the surrounding area were opening as early as 4AM, which meant customers would be lining up hours earlier. The heaviest shopping was going to be at the malls and big box stores; not in Charming. Most of the local stores weren't going to be open that early on Friday, if at all.
It made no economic sense to drag her staff out at 'oh dark thirty' on the oft chance that early bird shoppers would want to pick up a cup of her coffee before they headed to the malls. The store was to remain closed for the entire four day weekend.
Bobby Munroe and Cat had disagreed over the four day closure. He was concerned about missing profit. He had a right because the Sons of Anarchy were 30% partners with her. "Darlin' you're missing out on a lot of potential income here. Isn't 'Black Friday' one of the biggest sales days of the year?"
"Oh, brother, you shouldn't have gone there," Tig Trager interjected. He was the MC's Sergeant at Arms and Cat's husband. He knew that his lady would be well prepared to meet that question.
"I understand and appreciate your concern, Bobby," Cat replied, smiling sweetly as she passed a folder to him. "Here's a study I made of the sales in Charming on 'Black Friday' versus the malls and big box stores. Over the last few years, local stores actually lost sales that day."
Bobby glanced over the figures and charts she'd prepared, noting that the local stores not only lost sales on 'Black Friday', but also during the entire Thanksgiving weekend.
" I think once you review the figures, you'll agree that giving the staff time off is in our best interest,."she added, nearly purring with satisfaction.
