The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is the most wonderful time of the year. The shopkeepers and clerks have just begun to get into the spirit of the holidays and aren't burned out yet. They offer Happy Holidays and soon Merry Christmas, and they will mean it without reservation.
They are filled with hope that this will be a profitable year, and your purchase or mine might push their business out of the red, or insure the employee will still have a job at the end of season, for full timers. The seasonal help is still jazzed about having a job and haven't yet been so traumatized by rude customers that they are red-eyed and hissing their greetings.
I try to let those who help me know I appreciate their service, and that the work they do makes it possible for me to do what I need to do.
Every once in awhile an associate, or whatever is the appropriate store term for  their employees, goes out of his or her way to assist me, and it reaffirms that good customer service isn't dead. It may be gasping for air and clutching at the sheets in pain, but there is still hope.
I think it's a two-way street to some extent. If I as a shopper am nice and considerate toward the associates, they will return the sentiment. Many do. Others... well, nobody wins them all.
In less than a month, the associates will be burning out, and will be as short tempered as the customers searching for the last ______ that is the number one item all children want this year, and all the stores ran out of weeks ago. Employees will still say Happy Holidays, or Merry Christmas, but the undertone in their voice and heart won't be happy or merry.
But now, it's the most wonderful time of the year.
Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a Wonderful New Year!