The past few years have been, to put it lightly

"This is the beginning of the holiday season; we hope things will pick up, but compared to last year, we're scared," because business is slow, Yilmaz said.Hickory Farms has been a holiday mainstay at the mall for many years, and the company has been meeting its sales goals, said Taylor Gigeous, a cashier."People have been telling me they're waiting until the first week in December before they start buying," Gigeous said. "That's when it gets super busy, and I love it."Individual shops usually hire extra staff, but the mall doesn't hire extra security or maintenance folks for the holidays, according to said Heather Ernst, marketing director at FSK Mall, where Santa arrived Friday.There are many charitable programs over the holidays, including in the stores. At Kmart, customers can participate in Share Our Strength's No Kid Hungry program, where shoppers can donate toys from a "Fab 15" list of toys to children in need.

The past few years have been, to put it lightly, tumultuous. Uprisings against dictatorship, financial crises, and discontent with old ways of governing have given people plenty of reasons to take to the streets. But it turns out the world's protesters have more in common than indignation and a desire for change. They also share a surprisingly widespread weapon of choice: pots and pans. In just this past year, protesters across the globe have taken to the streets to pound kitchenware with wooden spoons in a show of civic solidarity.

The pots-and-pans protest tactic was first employed decades ago by dissidents in Chile. They were demonstrating against then-President Salvador Allende's economic policies, which had yielded shortages in essential products and hyperinflation. In what they dubbed "the march of the empty pans," Chileans banged on pots empty of the food that government policies had, it was said, failed to provide. Later, Pinochet's opposition used the same tactic so protesters could voice their dissent from the relative safety of their own homes. That was important, since Pinochet's security service did not exactly tolerate dissent.