And you thought Christmas was over. Let's take a look at that checklist: The decorations are put away, you have cleaned the store, placed some fresh merchandise on the shelf and done an evaluation of the Christmas selling season.

What's that? You have done it all except the evaluation.

A crucial part of any major season-especially Christmas-that must be completed in order to call it finished is the evaluation. It is the part that will help you better plan for next Christmas.

When I did some training for a major mission organization, our leader told us how important it was to evaluate each training event immediately afterward and to keep careful notes so that each event would be more successful than the last. It was not my favorite thing to do, but I soon realized that, aside from pre-planning, there was nothing more important than evaluating my performance after the class.

The same is true-maybe even more so-with retail. Now, while it is fresh on your mind, you and your team need to take a look at the result of the last six to eight weeks.

Your P.O.S. system will be your best friend in the process. First, look at each department to see which produced the most sales.

Now break it down into categories. I find the more categories I have, the better I can evaluate what is happening in the store. Were there some categories that stood out? Are there some that need to be eliminated or seriously adjusted for the next year?

One of the categories that fell short for two straight years in our store was Christmas gift books. I continued carrying them, just not in the numbers I had before. I would not have realized I needed to make that adjustment had I not looked at the category after Christmas.

Once you have taken a good look at the overall picture, consider the Christmas items-which ones sold best or not at all. Once again, are there those "dogs" that you will not want to stock next Christmas season?

It is important that you do this before you go to market or to The Gathering 2010 in April. You don't want to repeat the same mistakes. And it is so easy to forget if you depend on a cursory, "Oh, I want to remember not to get any of those next year" kind of thinking.

Make a file-or if you are a "techy"-put it in your Blackberry, to be reviewed when you shop for Christmas 2010.

I e-mailed some managers of church bookstores around the country, asking if they had done their evaluations, and following are some of their responses.

One store that had seen sales really trending down saw Christmas sales down significantly from the year before, but beginning an upswing from the months just prior to the Thanksgiving-New Year's season. Another leader from a large church elsewhere shared that he had bought 10% more Christmas product this year, but had sold 95% of it.

Those reporting the greatest increase seemed to be stores that had a special emphasis by the pastor, a tie-in to their Christmas program or a particular event that brought customers to the store.

Each of these stores is able to use these evaluations to begin planning for the next year. The store that had such tremendous success with a Christmas brochure will probably want to do a similar piece next year, but a store that had the majority of its Christmas ornaments left over may want to invest those dollars in another category.

We know that inventory is, largely, what makes the store a success or failure. The evaluation tells us, not just numbers, but how well we have served our customers. And that is the bottom line of any church bookstore ministry-to meet and even exceed the needs of our customers.