“Have yourself a merry little Christmas”!  This year many will replace the exclamation with a bold, and maybe tripled, question mark at the end of this familiar opening strain.  That’s because little may mean VERY LITTLE, for the newly unemployed, those who have given up after months of searching, and other myriad Americans who will have less under the tree.  The pain is spreading like a nasty poison ivy rash throughout the entire economy.  Like most rashes, it will run its course.  The big unanswered question is: How long and how painful will it be?  I’m really stressed on this count, because Bob Stockdale doesn’t even know, and he’s the Deepak Chopra of all things financial. 

And the auto industry, ouch!  I heard some auto shows are being cancelled or severely clipped in magnitude.  Dave Finkelstein may actually have to drive his OWN car for a change, eh?  Seriously, the Big 3 have been their own grave diggers, aided and abetted by too-aggressive union-brokered deals over the years.  Management took us for granted.  For the last 30 years the mantra “Buy USA, support your neighbor” worked.  But dissatisfaction with quality and features finally changed our allegiance.  Seeing our “neighbors” shop at Wal-Mart didn’t help either.  We have become obsessed with stuff, at any price, from any source, on every credit card.  And this year it all changed.  Probably for a generation or two, things will be different.  But that’s not all bad.

Have you felt the buzz of everyday Americans over bailouts for the mismanagers on Wall Street and Detroit?  For that matter how about the UAW bosses who killed the golden goose with unrealistic, dreamy benefit and pension plans?  The buzz is uniquely American.  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…..uh, uh.  No fools are we.  We won’t cave again, I think.  Because those left carrying an increasingly sagging safety net realize our season of doing with less has value. And even though both industries, and more to come, may get battered and beat up, needed restructuring and realistic consumerism will result.  This year may be a truly meaningful, if not ‘merry’ Christmas. 

Less stuff means more time in relationship.  Maybe it means breaking out those dusty board games, or an unfinished model airplane.  How about that beginners leather craft set Grandma gave you a decade ago?  Have some old fashioned fun with the fam.  We’re doing it this year, and so are many we know.  I’m shopping less and writing more thank you notes, calling old friends and taking time to enjoy the fabric of small America. 

It’s small, local businesses I’m about from here on.  These are the folks, their owners and workers, who will resurrect America’s economy.  They’ll tell me the straight story and make it right when I need repairs.  They have to.  No Paulson, no Reid, no Pelosi, no Obama to help them, is there?  Integrity and management decisions determine their fate;  no bailout prospect, no corporate welfare, no silk stocking lobbyist to plead their case with regulators or TARP administrators.  

Next time you shop, patronize small business; things are bleak in forgotten