Break out your Bing Crosby records - with snow showers in the forecast for Christmas Eve, and highs expected below freezing, Spokane's looking at a white Christmas. But before we get into the holiday spirit, we've got some work to do.

This will sound familiar to you folks out on The Coast: In Spokane, a slow-down in the residential real estate market is being off-set by growth in the commercial sector.

Much like on Puget Sound, the Journal of Business reports that home sales in Spokane through November were down 8 percent compared to last year, and they're likely to continue down in 2008. However, this still will end up being one of the four or five best years in history for the Spokane market, a broker told the paper.

But like King County, commercial construction remains strong in the Lilac City, even as home building slows.

One of the new commercial projects is a new $20 million retail development that will replace the Wendle Ford dealership next to Northtown Mall. The Wendles, who have been at the location since 1964, are consolidating their operations further north at the "Y" - which is the landmark north Spokane intersection between Division Street and U.S. Highway 195, for all you West-siders. The old car lot will instead become a 71,000-square-foot retail center set to open in spring 2009.

Job growth is expected to slow, the JoB reports, but some sectors should be strong. Manufacturing is one, and here's an interesting tidbit to chew on: Lee Tate, the president of a company that manufactures electronics under contract, says he's seeing a slow-down in off-shoring. Rising wages in China, coupled with rising fuel costs that make it more costly to ship across the Pacific, make it less attractive to send work there, he says.

"Tate says he expects revenues at Tate Technology to jump about 50 percent next year, after having grown by 20 percent this year," the JoB reported. "He says he believes his company's competitors here are similarly busy, and he anticipates continued solid growth as consumer products rely more heavily on electronic components."

Interesting, eh? We'll have to keep an eye on this.

Tourism also should do well, thanks to the weak dollar. And just because I know some of you I-5 snobs wonder why anyone would visit sleepy ol' Spoka-mo, just remember that Spokane's a jumping-off point for Europeans visiting Glacier National Park in Montana and other sites in the northern Rockies. It also is attracting its share of visitors from Alberta and interior B.C., who are coming down to see how far they can stretch their loonies.

Out on the farm, Christmas came early this year. High prices - record highs in some cases - and good harvests for most crops mean that farmers have been able to pay off loans and still have money to spend, bankers report. That's got some farm lenders thinking of expansion. Wheatland Bank, for example, is moving into apple country, with a new branch in Wenatchee and another planned for Yakima.

SPEAKING OF YAKIMA, the owners of the long-moribund Yakima Mall have brought in CB Richard Ellis to develop a plan for some 300,000 square feet of space. A spokesman hinted at an open-air "lifestyle center" similar to Seattle's University Village, only with a wine country theme.

The spokesman told the Yakima Herald-Republic that "he believes Yakima is a market that has been overlooked and undersold," particularly in light of "the ongoing renewal of downtown with street improvements and creation of downtown living spaces."

AND SPEAKING OF BANKING, over in Walla Walla, the state's oldest bank - Baker Boyer - has completed a $3 million restoration of its downtown headquarters branch. The move allowed the bank to consolidate its personal and business banking and wealth management units under one roof, my friends at the Union-Bulletin report.

AND WITH THAT, The 509 Report wishes you - from Goldendale to Metaline and from Clarkston to Stehekin - the Merriest of Christmases y un Feliz Navidad. May your days be merry and bright, and none of your fourth-quarter sales be light.