A hobby is something that not only swallows time, grows talent and gives pleasure. It is an activity that begs to be shared and shouts to be showcased. Christmas isn’t a hobby for every one — many are content to be mere bystanders, enjoying the sights, sounds and seasonal highlights around them. And that’s fine, we’re not critcal of that. But for many — be it the hobbyist light hanger, crafter, scrapper or tree themer — it is a call to action. It just seems that for some Christmas is a verb.

At Christmas Tree Lane — a lovely blogspot destination — Christmas is definitely a hands on art. Operated by an elementary school principal from the midwest, Terri Steffes, Christmas Tree Lane is a joyful celebration of family, food, recipes, traditions and all things related to Christmas.

I like Christmas Tree Lane because it doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t. It isn’t an encyclopedia, a portal, a search engine or the end-all-be-all of Christmas online. It is the Christmas experience USA-style as appreciated and celebrated by one who is as American as they come. Terri has an abiding love for the season and she’ll share whatever Christmas she finds.

It helps that she is an educator and actually knows how to write, too. In fact, I delight sometimes in her shared experiences:

Hark, the Harold Angels sing…When I was a little girl, I had all the lyrics to many songs confused. This was just one of them! I never knew any one named Harold and why I assumed this, I have no idea. Just like the Lord’s Prayer…and Howard be thy name….. again, where did that come from? I don’t know anyone named Howard, either!

See what I mean? Entirely genuine.

Christmas Tree Lane could well be a part of the Organized Christmas crowd that is so popular online. Primarily women and happy homemakers this group has for years flourished with their year round discussion of organizing for Christmas. While Christmas Tree Lane has no shortage of reminders when it comes to key calendar dates in organizing it is flush with images of ideas picked up here and there, no doubt much of it from that tight network of merry women.

But men can enjoy Christmas Tree Lane as well (I am exhibit “A”). The photography of food alone would enough to inspire any male but honestly there are enough ideas in decorating that any aspiring Clark Griswold can get ideas from Christmas Tree Lane.

Christmas Tree Lane is a great reminder that the Internet doesn’t have to be populated with shops, marketers or techno geeks to enjoy Christmas online. In fact, Christmas is what gives the Internet warmth in an otherwise cold, selling-centric kind of environment so common to seasons online.

Christmas Tree Lane, like Christmas itself, has none of that. It comes from the heart.

This merry little site has been a labor of love since 1997 and there is something about the 1990′s-style of the web design coupled with the brilliant photography of New York City department store windows and Christmas sights that give this little site a lot of holiday charm. And, for those of us not close to New York at the holidays it gives us a unique look at Christmas done in the big city.

The site features an event calendar, pictures of Christmas around the city and it includes a city map and the history of perhaps the most famous Christmas tree in the world at Rockefeller Center. We’re happy to designate Christmas in New York our site of the week!

Not just for kids, the site allows an amazing amount of customability, even getting names pronounced correctly (in some cases). It has categories for messages from Santa for loved ones, business associates and friends. According to the site, more than 10 million video messages from Santa have already been sent. It is a free resource, though checking the privacy policy for what they use your email and other personal information is advised.

Their only business is Christmas ornaments — and not your garden-variety tree decorations either. Lining the walls are ornaments of all types most made by hand fashioned from American artists and cast in such a way that personalization for each one is possible. Covering all possible themes — from typical Americana to pop culture — just about any kind of ornament can purchased and made one-of-a-kind.

While there on a visit I spoke with Bev, who owns and runs the shop with her husband. They are in their 20th year of the enterprise and enjoy tremendous success via their shop in the picturesque village and via their website. “We are pretty busy year round,” Bev told me. “But no matter what our calendar says they always seem to find a way to visit us all at once come November.” Even in the dog days of August Bev was busy at her desk personalizing ornaments for shop and web visitors. I watched her expertly personalize an ornament for me while she explained the process of ornament design and production for their inventory. They work with many local artists and others they have established contact with across the country over the years, hand-selecting designs and working to keep items as unique as possible. Indeed, their selection was amongst the most beautiful and most unusual I had seen in my many visits to Christmas shops across the country. You won’t find a single “Made in China” product in the shop — in fact, everything there is proudly made in the USA.

We are happy to name their our site of the week!

To get an idea how some of the ornaments are crafted, see this video:

We’re pleased to highlight a new online resource for folks looking for their own Santa train ride this holiday season, found at NorthPoleTrains.com. If you want to take in scenery of a winter wonderland, have a Santa experience on a train or enjoy the full-blown Polar Express fantasy this site will tell you where to find it anywhere in the world. In fact, if there is anything about Christmas, Santa and trains to be found online, this site has it.

This is the kind of Christmas resource the Internet was made for. The site is simply done, a quick read and a fun diversion.

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving and it has everything to do with your money and separating it from you. It has grown into an event – a holiday tradition – as well-known and celebrated as football on Thanksgiving or Santa at Christmas. It is a wholly American tradition.

By strict definition, Black Friday used to be the day when retailers would celebrate reaching profitability – or in the “black” – for their operating year. With the busiest shopping days of Christmas ahead of them, the money for the year would really start to pile up. Modern retailers wish they could mark such a day on their calendars still. But Black Friday has in the last 25 years especially morphed from a milestone for retailers into something entirely different.

For our international readers here is how Black Friday is celebrated by many Americans: a Thanksgiving day of family devoted activities and feasting leads to the first activity of Christmas: shopping.

In some places it begins as early as midnight, with malls across America opening and hosting “pajama parties”, promising big discounts for the earliest shoppers. In some extreme cases the crowds are so thick that local police are called to direct traffic and ensure that fire safety laws are enforced. But more traditionally the real big retailers – WalMart, Best Buy, Target, Kmart, JCPenney’s and others – open their doors between 4am and 6am with highly touted and spectacular discounts on popular in-demand products.

How great are these deals? Last year you could get a computer for $200. A decent 32 inch flat screen TV was only $300. BluRay movie titles were as little as $5 and coats for kids were priced at as low as $10. With such attractive bargains, many people scour the ads on Thanksgiving Day and set up a strategy for their early morning buying.

For retailers, it is a game of necessity but not one they are particularly fond of. At such prices there isn’t any profit being made. And stores get trashed in the process. In some extreme cases, retailers suffer damages due to the liabilities they incur by drawing massive crowds. So why do they do it? Because competition demands it. To be seen and talked about on Black Friday could lead to a successful – or disasterous shopping season, depending upon what happens.

Black Friday therefore has become almost like a sport. Retailers play the game of what to stock and how to price it. And consumers have to strategize of where to be and how much to have in order to grab the bargain.

Over the years a number of online resources have developed to help both consumers and retailers inform themselves of Black Friday events. In some cases, early ads are “leaked” to these sites either on purpose or clandestinely, depending upon who you talk to. Some retailers will willingly serve up information to them to build up anticipation and “buzz” about their locations and products. Others will leak false information to tweak competitors. So as you peruse the following list of resources realize that what you read there may or may not be true. It is all part of the game.

BFAds.net
The granddaddy of Black Friday websites claims to be the oldest and most accurate. Few dispute this and even fewer really care because every year is a new story and what happened in the past rarely indicates what will happen this year. This site is known for gaining early season insights, often irritating retailers who claim they get their information in unauthorized ways. This site is almost as famous for the “cease and desist” orders they receive from retailers as they are from the ads they post. We have watched them for several years and have noticed a disturbing trend this year of continual marketing of Black Friday t-Shirts and other merchandise that gets plugged more than actual news that is published.

They too have taken to linking to certain products from certain retailers (both online and offline), leading us to believe they are affiliate marketers. I am starting to question their objectivity.
Traffic information and media mentions of this site appears to top all others and the site has to run on several servers to meet the demands of traffic upon it. The domain was registered back in 2005 and appears to be hosted out of Texas from IP 173.192.80.232 (Softlayer Technologies).

BlackFriday.Info
This site takes a cleaner, more graphical approach to Black Friday deals. They use vendor logos and present information in a straightforward way. It is one of our favorite resources because we can see all that is happening with Black Friday quickly and concisely. The site does not overwhelm you with ads or affiliate links. It has the experience to be credible and serves up straightforward feeds.

The domain was created in 2005 and is registered in France. Servers for the site are located in Texas from IP 74.86.181.237 (Softlayer Technologies) Traffic and ranking statistics are nearly identical to
BFads.net

BlackFriday.org
Out of all the sites we tested this year this one appears to have the consumer most in mind in the way it delivers news without selling. The site runs on WordPress, is fast and cleanly organized. There is not an overwhelming presence of ads, affiliate links or bias towards one retailer over another.

The only question: can they get the breaking news?

The domain was created back in 2003 and the site is served on several servers. It doesn’t rank as well for traffic or popularity. The servers are, curiously, also hosted in Texas from IP 64.228.3.152.

Black-Friday.net
This site appears to be a copycat of BFads.net. Nothing they offer is unique and what they do offer curiously appears only after BFads.net has posted it on their site first. What gives us pause is that this site carries product-specific information – much like you would see at the Best Buy website. That leads us to believe they are more of an affiliate marketer than a true news site. Proceed with caution. Created in 2005, and served from Texas at IP 74.86.202.132. Traffic and ranking stats are middle of the road by comparison.

BlackFriday.com
Not a lot of value in this site. The news is old, oddly presented and usually late.

Lower traffic and ranking in search engines, in fact, we think this site likely draws only traffic because it is a top level domain name and many folks just type in blackfriday.com. This site is located, curiously, in Vancouver and is served by a single computer.

Who has the real scoop when it comes to BF?
We like three sites that dedicate themselves to shopping year round and don’t just try to do this come every October. Without a doubt, they lead all the above mentioned sites for real news and information and we suspect this is true because they must have established relationships with the many retailers and etailers out there. Who are they? Gottadeal.com, WalletPop.com and DealNews.com.

In a down economy, layaway plans allow a Christmas shopper to select an item months in advance and pay it off in small increments while it sits on the retailer’s shelf. The advantage of this to the shopper is obvious: you hang on your cash, you get the item you want and you don’t have to pay interest charges. The potential downsides are these: the items may go on sale cheaper later in the season once you have already signed a layaway agreement or you may have cash flow issues that prevent you from making future payments (especially on high ticket items), which would cause you to lose any money you have paid towards the item and the item itself.

Christmas savings clubs work a bit differently. Born of retailers long before the turn of the 20th century, Christmas savings clubs are just as a name implies – plans devoted to storing money, not merchandise – until the holiday shopping season. They went by the wayside as American prosperity and the growth of revolving credit emerged in the mid-20th century – mostly due to the paperwork and bureaucratic nightmare it created for retailers and banks that administered the programs.

A nightmarish economy and gift-card technology of the 21st century have revived the concept and it is a good one – if you like to do all your Christmas shopping in one place.
The new Christmas savings clubs offer a 3% bonus on any money you deposit within a certain time frame. That is a better rate of return than most modern savings banks. There are no refunds on money you deposit but the money always remains available and the bonus is only good on total deposits received within a certain time frame (usually from early spring to around mid-October to mid-November, depending upon the retailer).

Christmas savings clubs – available at major retailers like Toys R Us and Kmart and some smaller retailers – can be a boon for the tightly budgeted Christmas shopper. But folks can just as easily save their cash and get a slightly lesser return at a bank and then have the flexibility of spending their Christmas money wherever they want.

Make your list, Check it twice

How much gift giving do you do? How much do you have to do? After all, these are tough times. Your generosity just might be putting the squeeze on a loved one or close friend who might feel obligated to reciprocate your gift giving nature. Are these the best times for this kind of practice? Do you really need to participate in every gift exchange? Now is the time to take inventory of it. Talk about it now, while the glow of Christmas lights are far away. You may find your list a little shorter this year with a little proactive planning right now.

Dream, Dream, Dream

What will be the hot thing this Christmas? Start asking around right now. Just this week Microsoft made waves with a new product called Kinect which is a motion sensing camera attached to an Xbox gaming system. Big deal, you say? It might not be a big thing to YOU but it got a lot of buzz via Facebook and in the media this past week. And in just a few short days it has already been identified as one of the must-have gifts for Christmas 2010.

What does this mean for you?

It means you’ve got to plug in, tune in and turn on the media to find out what the deal is for Christmas. Many folks — especially kids — want the “in” thing. Now is the time when that buzz builds. Often, these items are impossible to find come Christmas. Sometimes your only shot at them is to get them before Labor Day. Pre-ordering through Amazon, for example, is a great way to beat the holiday rush — or the holiday out-of-stock situation. Ask anyone trying to buy an iPhone a couple years ago. Listen well and act fast, Savvy Shopper.

Strike while the iron is hot

Retailers love Christmas. They love Thanksgiving, Halloween and Back-to-School time. But they hate June and July. They detest those months because nobody has much of a reason to buy. After all, folks are drenched in sunscreen and thinking vacation right now. And that means opportunity for the Savvy Shopper. Malls are not only air conditioned but they are empty — and full of bargains. On some purchases retailers are so desperate for sales they just might barter a bit with you. What have you got to lose?

There is a lot of wisdom to beating the Christmas rush. And nothing beats it better than getting it done now.

The behemoth retailer said it will reduce prices 20% to 30% on another 100 toys, including the Buzz Lightyear talking action figure and Rocky the Robot. These new prices will be available through Christmas, or while supplies last.

Previously Wal-Mart announced it will offer 100 toys for $10 during the holiday season.

The discounter is also lowering prices on other items like books and said it will roll-back prices on select items every week until Christmas.

As Wal-Mart continues to lower prices, rivals are following suit, launch something of a holiday-season price war.

In September Target reduced prices as much as 50% on popular toys and announced on Friday that it is expanding its free shipping offer. Now shoppers can get free shipping on 50% more items on the retailers Web site.

Amazon is offering a similar promotion when it comes to books, slashing prices on popular new hardcover releases.

Here, scientists are trying to produce the picture perfect Christmas tree.

“I get a lot of calls from people who want to make extra money by growing a few trees on their back 40,” said Gary Chastagner. “They have no idea how much work it is.”

Tree experts from Norway to North Carolina are here at WSU’s research and extension center.

Researchers are trying to figure out what causes conifers to drop needles.

“You get to something like this and they’re just coming off like crazy,” said Chastagner.

It’s not the surprise under the tree customers crave.

These scientists are looking for a new higher quality species that will last longer in your home and offer a whole new niche.

“35 to 40 percent of all trees grown in U.S. come from Washington and Oregon,” Chastagner said.

Growing good trees is good business. Growers in Washington and Oregon harvest more than 10 million trees a year at a wholesale value of $176 million.

To get your money’s worth, find a tree stand that holds at least a gallon of water.

“One of the issues is many of the stands on the market place don’t hold an adequate amount of water for the trees that are displayed,” Chastagner said.

The tree experts also told us don’t bother with water additives, they add no benefit to your tree. Just water alone is the single most important ingredient.

It may be three months until the holiday, but every day revolves around Christmas for these guys.