At the end of the Santa Fe trail, on the plaza, sits Rudolph In Ice, part of La Fonda's holiday exhibit and gift to the city that, unlike most other gifts, just melts away. With the cold weather here, it is lasting longer this year. Christmas in Santa Fe is one big delight. While displays with the farolitas make up traditions here along with tamales and posadas, I was thinking of new trends I'm noticing.
Gift Cards -- this uptick trend in economic tight times was certainly part of our gifting strategy. Gas cards were #1 at our house. This might be the biggest story this year in consumer spending while Target and other stores saw ho-hum sales. Also a new trend: peer-to-peer lending is expected to increase 800%.
What color trends will happen in a recession? Pantone's color is Blue Iris -- blue is a color of trust. Kathy caught the color of the year, but with the subprime fiasco hitting hard, I wonder if the resale factor is going to swing us back to the neutrals -- beige or grey? Blue never goes out of style and the Color Marketing Group predicts not only blue, but "green" trends such as natural fibers, hand-made and unbleached will be strong along with ethnic accents.
Pet trends? Flexpet - for dog lovers who can't do full-time ownership (via kchristieh) might be what my Dallas daughter could do. Meanwhile, my mom is interested in her long-hair dauchsund breeder's new blondes. I've promised my mother I'll take her little Lili when she's gone, even though Lili isn't coming with a trust fund like Trouble. My sister-in-law says the blonde dauchsunds might be dumb. ha. Neighbors in NYC dyed leopard spots on their golden retriever. Actually I thought it looked pretty cool. Can you imagine a little blonde dauchsund duded up like a leopard?
Shopdropping is the newest trend to pique my interest. This might be the way to get rid of the white elephant/fruitcake gifts you can't pass on to anyone else. You just stick on a note "this is free" and drop it down as you shop. This is a tactic used by political and cultural activists. Have you come across this?
What other trends are you noting?
I can't say I noticed "trends", per se, this year, except in our little 2-person household. My kid and I both boycotted Christmas stress. No tree, no mistletoe, no tinsel, no stockings, no hassle, no mess, and no regrets.
NO KIDDING!
Instead we enjoyed everyone else's lights and music and shiny things and she spent hours on Christmas Day adding and subtracting the totals of her gift-card presents (yup - definitely a trend there!) and planning mall shopping sprees.
Me, I drank rum and smiled. A lot.
Happy Almost New Year, Mother Pie! I hope 2008 is a wonderful, powerful year for you.
Posted by: Les | December 28, 2007 at 08:39 AM
I'm not sure when we started this, but(I'm a bit embarrassed to say) we have stockings for our dogs. Of course the children have the largest ones, but the furry four-legged babies get treats, too. I bet we're not the only ones who do this, though. I know pet spending is a HUGE trend. However we haven't dyed our animals yet.
Posted by: allison | December 28, 2007 at 09:06 AM