Sears Limps Through What Could Be Its Final Holiday Season

Thirty years ago, Sears was the world's largest retailer, as well as the original financial supermarket. This time of year, its stores, once a fixture in malls across America, would be crowded with holiday shoppers snapping up clothing, home goods, appliances or toys that their kids had carefully circled on the pages of the retailer's venerable Christmas wish book.

Less than two dozen full-size stores are open this holiday season, compared with more than 3,500 Sears and Kmart stores. The Sears emporiums have been converted into smaller spaces for other stores, refashioned for non-retail operations such as medical offices or gyms, or simply left vacant. The four-year-long bankruptcy of Sears is an ignominious comedown for a company that has defined American retailing for more than a century.