But it’s more like the Grinch is sneaking up to steal Christmas.

It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t blog to chronicle what’s happening now, so I’ll start off with a question:

Q: What’s black and white and red all over?

A: Financials.

In a nutshell:

• Lehman went bankrupt on Monday
• Merrill, seeing its shares falling fast and hard, sold itself to B of A
• AIG is tottering, propped up only by the US government
• Equities the world over looked to start falling off cliffs
• Holidaymakers came back in Asia on Tuesday to catch up in the lemming-run
• Oil prices broke through some key supports and are taking a nose-dive as well
• Russia had to stop trading to try and get a grip as fire and selling are coming together into one word
• LIBOR o/n doubled yesterday

And as I write, the big old financials are continuing to spill blood on Wall Street, RTS is still shut and analysts are looking at more big shakeouts in financials.

Not to mention other industries feeling the heat now, which I don’t follow closely, but they’re out there.

LEI’s are still down, too.

So with all these job cuts, where is consumer spending going to go? Probably not the North Pole.

Oh, but in other doomsday news, it’s been reported that the ozone hole above Antarctica grew in 2008.

Boy could we all use some eggnog, fireplace and comfy wooly sweater right about now, huh?