Kmart and the Christmas Spirit

If you are looking for a sign of Christmas cheer, Manhattan’s Astor place is not where you would start. Dividing the East and West Villages, it is a portal through which visitors can pass to seedier parts of town no matter how much neighboring NYU tries to spruce up the place. More than a century ago the area housed millionaire mansions and John Wannamaker built a branch of his eponymous department store to serve the local society ladies. As times passed and money moved uptown, only a few local stalwarts–Cooper Union, the Public Theater, and McSorley’s around the corner–kept any order in the area’s mess. Into this descended Kmartnsome 27 years ago, where a national brand and low prices on everyday goods brought together college kids, low-income locals, and, it turns out, Santa’s helpers.

Now charity shopping days are hardly unique, whether it is picking up a letter from the post office or dropping off canned goods to help feed the hungry. But when the Archdiocese of New York (the good folks behind St. Patrick’s Cathedral) puts their mind to a Christmas shopping event, you are in a whole new league. Not just the pros, but the major leagues. As with any organized sport there are rules, and the number one rule for St. Nicholas Shopping Day (hey, the name doesn’t have to be that original) is…no toys. 

You read that right.

You see, Catholic Charities runs its own social services, and many might argue far more efficiently than anything the government could come up with. And so with a budget of New York-sized proportions, a targeted and complex operation of military precision and scope opened up on the first Saturday of December. Which brings up back to Kmart and the no toys policy.

If the point of the church’s social services network is to support the indigent, then what better way to give a true gift than to make sure their congregants in need have clothes on their back and a blanket over their bed? And what better way to match this need than assembling a couple of hundred volunteers with a specific list of items for each family and requiring them to keep a strict per person budget? And where could you maximize this strict budget? Kmart.

And so my wife and I, along with mutual friends, would zip down to the Astor Place Kmart on the appointed day and get to work. Upon checking in, a volunteer would hand us a t-shirt (red or green, again, not much need for excessive creativity) and a shopping list. It was an eye-opening experience, reading the needs of what we took for granted. The lists were their own story, similar to ones of generations of those in need, but each spoke in a different way. The social worker responsible would assess the family’s needs. Some families might be recent immigrants from Central America with, understandably, no winter clothes. Others might have just moved with the clothes on their back but, literally, no sheets on their beds. And so the social worker would create the list–a father needs a work coat for day labor; a wife needs a coat for church; a two-year-old needs pajamas; a teenager needs school clothes; the whole family needs sheets and towels. Ages and approximate clothing sizes were provided. And then the competition began.

Sure we were volunteering and helping, but this being New York everyone was trying to outdo everyone else, even if it was for God’s work. Calculators came out, discount percentages were precisely calculated, and bargaining ran amok. While each recipient had a budget, usually $50, it meant that a family of four had an overall budget of $200. So the horse trading would begin–my wife would insist a four-year-old needed an extra dress for school while I countered that dad’s winter work coat wouldn’t do any good without gloves and a hat. Angry stares ensued, un-Christian language was whispered under our breath, and even harder bargaining ensued. But the beauty was that everyone was in the same boat, and everyone heard the conversations. Other volunteers chimed in–a new set of hats, scarves, and gloves just went down in price, $3 more dollars in the kitty; a new rack of girls’ dresses just hit the floor, half off. And so it went until our budget was met and everything on the list was checked off.

And we wanted more. For half a dozen years the event got bigger and bigger. We got to the store earlier and earlier and wanted only the largest of families. Pushing shopping carts, we would ask other volunteers how things were going, and they would bemoan the difficulty in shopping for a family of three. We would nod in serious consolation and then casually mention this was our second family of six that morning. While it may have all been in the name of Jesus’ army of followers, we weren’t about to lose the war of looking good doing it. There was a certain absurdity to the whole thing–bewildered regular shoppers could not understand why the store was so crowded; we would use the store’s freight elevators to go between floors; more than a few prayers were said that warm weather would drive down the price of overcoats. It was a coffee-fueled blur, an urban bazaar of constant motion grabbing items off of racks and shelves, a race to find an empty shopping cart to start all over again.

For a few minutes, though, everything stopped. Walking through the front door, clothed in a perfectly-pressed black cossack, white collar, and silk scarlet zucchetto on his head, was His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan. He moved through the crowd shaking hands, posing for pictures, and sharing a few words with a television reporter. And then the perfect moment arrived–taking a microphone his voice would go throughout the store giving thanks to the volunteers and reminding us all of the importance of the work we were doing. It was a blue light special of faith.

My wife and I live in Florida now, so we aren’t there to do the shopping. During Covid, Catholic Charities bought all the materials ahead of time and volunteers assembled the requested packages. Kmart is now long gone. But I know that for thousands of families over the years, there was a helping hand to those in in true need. It’s a reminder of the real Christmas message, a reminder that needs no toys.

© 2023 Alexander W. Stephens, All Rights Reserved