"I’m growing really concerned that the industry as a whole is under-bought," Rosenblum says. "All the data is telling us that retailers have significantly cut back on holiday receipt plans, and as far as I know, manufacturers are not holding any safety stock as a hedge."

Retailers, she says, need to ask themselves: "Have I bought enough to satisfy demand, and what am I going to do if I haven't? Do I have any kind of contingency plan at all?"

If inventory stocks are too low, retailers risk alienating customers who may defect to other merchants offering desired products, says Rosenblum, a former retail executive.

• Nearly 71 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during the week leading up to Easter. By comparison, nearly 48 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during Valentine’s week and nearly 90 million pounds of chocolate candy is sold during Halloween week.
• More than 61 million dozen eggs are sold during the week leading up to Easter. Easter week is the top egg selling week of the year with sales 45 percent above average weekly sales. Easter Saturday (April 11) is the top buying day of the year for fresh eggs, followed by Good Friday (April 10).
• Consumers are expected to spend more than $3.5 million on matzo, the traditional unleavened bread, during the week leading up to Passover. The week leading up to the holiday is the highest sales week for matzo and matzo meal/mixes, with more than $1.2 million in sales expected.
• Nearly 1.5 million bottles, or $6.5 million in sales of kosher table wine, a traditional part of the Passover Seder, will be sold during the four weeks leading up to Passover, representing approximately 13 percent of the total year's sales of kosher wines. Approximately 65 percent of that amount will be sold during the two week period just before and during the Passover holiday.

A bat mitzvah was rare in the United States until the 1950s and '60s, said an associate rabbi at Menorah Park, Howard Kutner. Since then, many adult women have decided to make up for what they were denied as children, but most who do so are in their 50s and 60s, Rabbi Kutner said. A septuagenarian is rare and a nonagenarian nearly unheard of, he said, but only those in or near their 90s showed up when he offered bat mitzvah instruction to Menorah Park women of any age.

"Most people in their 90s, they just eat their three meals a day and are happy to be alive," Rabbi Kutner said. "I think this shows that at any age you can set a challenge and meet it." A challenge, perhaps, but not all the women see it quite that way. "My first thought was boy, what a hoot!" said Millie Danziger Fromet, 90. A self-described "feminist all my life," Evelyn Bonder, 90, said she "always thought girls should have the chance to participate" in something that Conservative, Orthodox and Reform congregations embraced in stages.

Ms. Agin said: "My daughter had a bat mitzvah. But it was on a Friday instead of a Saturday. It wasn't held inside the synagogue, and she wasn't allowed to read from the Torah." The women have met weekly with Rabbi Kutner to study Hebrew and the Torah in preparation for the service, which is scheduled for Sunday. The rabbi had planned to hold the ceremony in January, but he bumped it back to give the women more time to prepare. "The joke went around the room: Let's not do it after March," he said. "Who knows if we'll still be here!"

On a recent Monday, the women entered Menorah Park's synagogue for a dress rehearsal. Three used walkers. Another carried a small oxygen tank. As they rose to speak, they left their medical gear by their seats. They approached the bimah unassisted, some limping, and steadied themselves at the lectern with both hands.

The Obamas are spending a long weekend in Chicago for their first real break since he became president on Jan. 20. Aides say they have no public events. The couple left their Hyde Park home on Chicago's south side Saturday evening for a quiet dinner at Table 52, a restaurant owned by Oprah Winfrey's former chef, Art Smith. The menu features traditional Southern fare such as grits and sausage and catfish jambalaya.

The trip came with a minor hiccup: Obama's motorcade left without the small group of reporters who travel everywhere with the president. The motorcade pulled out of the neighborhood and left the president without media coverage for about 45 minutes, unusual for the news organizations covering Obama and the White House.

Earlier in the day, Obama began his weekend with a familiar trip to a gym in a friend's apartment building. Between his election and inauguration, Obama made the daily trip to his friend's gym. Obama didn't speak with reporters.