not keeping up their hoped-for seasonal jingle.

Like their American cousins, Bermudian merchants are taking the unusual step of putting on sales before Christmas.

All around town, and even in the big Front Street stores, red signs have been raised on racks, proclaiming up to 50 per cent off on some items.

These pre-Christmas "promotions'' are a reflection of the current retail situation, said H.A. & E. Smith's president Mr. Roger Davidson last week.

"There's a lot of promoting going on, and we're just trying to get our share of the traffic,'' he said, adding that he called the present price cutting a "promotion'', not a sale.

This week, he reported, the news was not much better. Bad weather in the earlier part of the week kept the shoppers at home, and the 12-hour day on Friday did not bring in much more business than a regular day -- and staff and utilities still had to be paid.

In announcing a 20 per cent sale, Queen Street Glass was following a practical strategy, said retail supervisor Ms. Wendy Avery.

Their Santa-hatted tree frogs and glass angels would not sell in the New Year, she stressed, so it made sense to mark them down now and not hold a post-Christmas sale.

"We've never done a pre-Christmas sale of this magnitude.'' She added that since costs have been high this year, they have had to give up half their shop space.

Consumer retail is not the only area affected by the trend, it seems, by the advertisements for sales on carpets, furniture and bikes.

"After Christmas discounts NOW!'' reads Mayne's Furniture's Co. Ltd.'s advertisement.

"We're promoting furniture for Christmas just the same as everyone else is promoting toys,'' said owner Mr. Bill Mayne.

In Trimingham's, although all men's shoes have already gone into the 50 percent bargain bins and there are other markdowns in the store, president Mr.

Eldon Trimingham played down the idea that merchants were taking desperate measures.

He said, "These are just specific, selected items where we might have more than we need.'' He explained that some marking-down happened every year, as buying for Christmas is done in February or March -- "And it's awfully hard to get it dead right.

"There seems to be quite a lot of excitement around.'' He was optimistic, predicting that stores could depend on Bermudians' "usual Christmas binge''.

Mr. Trimingham also pointed out that Christmas week had an extra day this year, which should factor out smaller sales for each day of the week.

"We're never doing as well as we'd like to!'' he admitted.

But Mr. Davidson concluded: "I couldn't say it's buoyant.''