I really, really love the snow. If there’s enough of it, the world is transformed into a sort of liminal, bizarro version of itself. Looking out the window of my office at home, everything is blessedly quiet and barren. Everything that appears takes on a sort of exaggerated significance. Seeing a car on the road at night is like seeing a dinosaur or a giraffe walk by. Watching two people walk through the light of a streetlamp at night is even stranger. Saturday night at the Swiss, which is usually accompanied by cacophony of sound and hordes of cars, was uncomfortably silent.

That brings us to the part that sucks — no people, no cars, and no travel options mean little-to-no business for hundreds of local businesses. The Swiss, for example, had three major Christmas party cancellations this past weekend, says co-owner Jack McQuade, and has been forced to shorten hours, during which time he sees a trickle of customers. You see, holiday shopping season is a make-or-break time for a lot of business owners. Retailers in particular depend on a surge of business during the holidays to bring them into the black — which is where we get the name Black Friday, when post Thanksgiving spending sprees help boost earnings into profitability — into the black, as it were.

There’s just one problem — many businesses have been forced to close by all this delightful snow. Businesses that manage to open see a trickle of customers. All those last minute shoppers — you know who you are — remain stuck at home. For many downtown business owners, after a year of economic upheaval and declining revenues, this snow storm couldn’t have come at a worse time.

“We weren’t having a great season to begin with,” says Marty Campbell, owner of Buzzard CDs and Video and Stadium Video. “It’s already a slow retail season. If you compound that with having to shut down for almost a week now, it really hurts. This is a make-or-break month for a lot of people, and this snow will probably break a few retailers.”

Campbell says this snow storm has hurt his earnings, especially at Buzzards. Stadium Video, because it’s within walking distance of hundreds of households, has seen a little bump in rentals. But overall, Campbell isn’t too stoked about this white Christmas.

“I am hopeful that people who haven’t been able to make it out to do a whole lot of other shopping will come out,” he says.

Wayne Howard, general manager at Asado restaurant on Sixth Avenue, says things haven’t been too bad at his spot. He even had a couple from Olympia drive up on Saturday during the worst of the snow dump.

“Business is all right,” he says. “We were doing fine until the snow hit hard. We did about half of what we normally do on a Friday night, and I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, I wish it was better, but I’ve been pleased with all the local support.”

Embellish Multispace Salon hasn’t been as lucky, says owner Patricia Lecy-Davis. Davis woke up to 17 cancellations Saturday. Like many retailers, Embellish relies on last-minute customers to boost revenues at the end of the year. The snow storm also delayed the planned opening of the new Embellish Annex at urbanXchange on Pacific Avenue. Instead, Davis has been tooling around with her husband, Thane, who has been taxiing friends around in his big-ass truck.

“You just suck it up and everybody takes a few days off,” says Davis. “We can get a bunch of organization done — database and what not — but it doesn’t do much for the bottom line.”