Dillard’s is primarily a Southern department store.
It’s not Macy’s or Nordstrom, but it has one thing going for it as far as I’m concerned. It’s one of the only places to buy Tommy Bahama sportswear. Tommy Bahama stuff has been one of my great extravagances since 2010, when I spent the summer in Texas and the outlet mall south of Austin had a TB store.
They hooked me that summer with a couple of sales with 50 percent off everything in the store.
But it was Monday this week when I got the best bargains ever. Dillard’s at the Perimeter Mall north of Atlanta had a sale of last summer’s shirts, marked down from $138 to $48.
Of course I’m old enough to remember when I bought a three-piece suit for less than $48, but hey, both of my kids make six-figure incomes now. It’s a different world.
But what could be an even bigger draw than Tommy Bahama?
How about Satan Claus?
Well, we are entering the last month of Christmas season. Or what used to be known as the beginning of Christmas season.
This may sound silly, but I’m old enough to remember when Christmas season didn’t start in October, when Black Friday wasn’t a modern version of “Death Race 2000.”
You know, the days before “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.”
I don’t remember offhand exactly which year it was, but in the late 1930s, when America was coming out of the Depression, President Roosevelt actually moved Thanksgiving ahead one week to give people more time to do their Christmas shopping. As difficult as it may be to believe, in those days, the Christmas shopping season actually began the weekend after Thanksgiving.
And not at 4 a.m. either.
That was before Satan Claus.
Of course, the fundamentalists think that it doesn’t make much difference whether it’s Satan or Santa. Christmas to them is all about the birth of Jesus, but just as Hanukkah was never the most important Jewish holiday, Christmas isn’t the most meaningful in Christianity.
Yes, Jesus was born. But it was never really in late December. Shepherds weren’t watching over their flocks in night at that time of year. Christmas is really a reworking of the Roman Saturnalia, at which Santa (or Satan) would feel more at home.
Easter is much more important in Christianity, which of course makes bunnies and chocolate eggs look a bit silly.
The fact is, we have become a society that commercializes and cheapens almost everything.
And if there’s something we haven’t cheapened yet, it’s only because we haven’t gotten around to it.
So if you’re going to see Satan Claus at Dillard’s, be very careful what you ask for.
You might just get it.