We won't know for certain how well this Christmas shopping season did until the end of February.
That's when Nevada releases the taxable sales numbers for the month of December.
While a lot of hype has been focused on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the real cash register ringing in Douglas County doesn't hit until December, when shopping and skiing combine for what has been one of the county's most profitable months.
In 2007, taxable sales for December hit $70 million. In 2008, it was just short of $60 million and in 2009, county merchants took in just under $55 million.
This year the sales trends have been following 2009's, so if we are indeed bumping along the bottom, the totals should be similar.
But it's not enough to simply survive. Our retailers have been hurting and they need a big year to pump some more life into the economy.
The big hope for this 2010 holiday shopping season is that it shows signs of climbing out of the cellar and floating a little closer to the top.
So here's wishing all of our retailers, both large and small, a profitable season.
