and lots of business = lots of money!

That's one thing I remember about Christmas when I was a kid. My father had a "department store."
Not like Wal-Mart exactly, but a 1940's store that had a men's department, a women's department, a jewelry department (one show case), a shoe department, etc. OK, I guess it was basically a clothing store, but Christmas business was the thing that pulled him through. He made a living the rest of the year, but just barely. Then along came Christmas with the gravey. Instead of working 10 hours a day for six days, he was working 12 hours a day. There was not a lot of time to sit back in the shoe department and sip coffee.

We didn't see a lot of him during that time. After Christmas, there was inventory to take, and all of the Christmas displays had to come down and be replaced with something else.

He always started the New Year with the hope that business would be better and the money would roll in, but it didn't really happen until Christmas.
Howard