Christmas Rush

In a Manhattan store packed with Christmas shoppers, an impatient customer stopped in front of a display typewriter and banged out a desperate note: "Why don't you wait on me?" All over the U.S. last week, harried clerks were faced with similar problems as they tried to placate hordes of well-heeled customers who nocked into the stores for a record Christmas-buying spree. Dun & Bradstreet analysts estimated that sales in the nation's department stores and mail-order houses will reach a record $2.4 billion in December, up $200 million from 1958, the previous record.

The buyers bought up everything they could get their hands on, but they showed a penchant for luxury goods, ranging from Tiffany & Co.'s gold martini mixer ($2,000) and Black, Starr & Gorham's gold tea set ($30,000) to Lord & Taylor's Hong Kong silk lounging pajamas ($79.95) and gold-plated toothbrushes ($5). "Anything with a gimmick sells very well," said Dominic Tampone, president of Manhattan's Hammacher Schlemmer: "This always happens in a high economy. You give a person something he wouldn't normally buy for himself."

The high economy bounced along on other fronts, with only a few bumps to slow its headlong pace: P: Employment in the U.S. in November reached 65,640,000, a record for the month, despite a decline of 1,191,000 in the number of jobs from October and a rise in unemployment to 3,670,000. Most of the unemployment rise was due to layoffs in industries depending on steel; the decline in jobs, bigger than the rise in unemployment, indicated that many workers retired from the labor force. P:Automakers scheduled production at 90% of the output at the same time last year. All told, the industry should produce 142,000 new cars this week v. 86,000 last week. For the first time in nearly four weeks, new cars rolled off General Motors' assembly line.

P: Steelmakers plan to operate at about 95% of capacity this week, and output should top the industry's alltime record reached last April. Imports of steel also eased slightly in October, but stayed at a high level of 362,000 tons for the month. P: Freight carloadings rose 75,513 cars above the previous week, outpacing the same week in both 1957 and 1958.

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