(UNDATED) They’re delaying their purchase of a new car. They’re thinking twice before dining out. But you know the economy is tough when consumers are even reducing their purchases of that Christmas staple: the fruitcake.

Monasteries and abbeys across the United States-where fruitcake baking is the traditional work of Trappist monks-are reporting a modest dip in sales. In some cases, the number of orders are about the same, but their dollar amounts have been trimmed.

“We’re right along with everybody else,” said the Rev. Richard Layton, business manager of Our Lady of Guadalupe Trappist Abbey in Lafayette, Ore. “Economic decline isn’t just happening in our monastery. Everybody’s feeling the pinch.”

His Trappist monastery, where monks age 31 to 93 spend part of their days in prayer and part working onsite, has felt the economic woes in some of its industries, particularly its forestry business. With people not buying houses, wood sales are down; and their book bindery is suffering, too. But continued interest in their wine warehouse and bakery is helping pick up the slack, Layton said.

Some of the monastery’s retail customers-such as one that ordered $50,000 worth of fruitcake-find sales are going just fine. But other smaller retailers have cut orders in half.

At Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Va., bakery manager Ernie Polanskas said orders of Christmas fruitcakes as well as sales of creamed honey and chocolate truffles seem to be on par with last year.

“We have heard from some (customers), because of the economy they’ve cut back as far as orders,” he said of the abbey where the bakery is the primary means of financial support for its 23 monks. “Basically we’ll get through this and, God’s will, whatever happens we’ll make the best of it.”

Brother Paul Richards, one of the bakery managers at Abbey of the Genesee in Piffard, N.Y., said call-in orders for their fruitcakes and whiskey cakes are similar to last year, but online sales at their Web site have doubled since last year.

“We’re just bracing ourselves for Christmas,” he said of the monks, who spend three-hour shifts in a bakery that produces white and whole wheat bread in addition to cakes and brownies. “We’re a monastery first and then a bakery. Sometimes the bakery can start taking over and we have to try to keep a balance here. After Christmas, we kind of recoup.”

With a new marketing campaign, the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Ga., had expected to far exceed sales from previous years, but the 42 monks there were content with orders for Christmas being up 8 percent by late November.

“The positive is we’re not seeing the reduction that many others are, but we are not seeing the gain that we were hoping for,” said Jim Burnham, business manager at the monastery. “What I’m more concerned with isn’t the number of orders,” he said. “But the dollars per order are down a little bit. I think people are being a little bit more cautious.”

But Burnham said the monks are more worried about the economy’s effect beyond their monastery east of Atlanta.

“I think they’re less concerned for themselves and the impact of their program than they are for just the overall impact, … what it’s going to mean for the average guy on the street,” he said.

While some monasteries are finding the bakery business is so far, so good, this year, they wonder what will happen next Christmas.

“We’re doing fairly well this year,” said Michael Hampton, shipping manager at Assumption Abbey in Ava, Mo. “We don’t know how we’ll do next year.”

The current support reflects some people sticking with their tradition of ordering the two-pound fruitcake from the remote abbey in the Ozarks, and cutting back elsewhere, he said.

“I’ve heard a few comments like that, how people made some cuts here and there but they weren’t going to go without their fruitcake,” he said.

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Photos of the monks making fruitcakes are available via https://religionnews.com