New York ? The holiday shopping season is here, and store windows are full of fake evergreens and snowflakes, big bows and wrapped boxes.

Inside the shops, the celebratory things are all in place: black dresses, beaded home accessories, snugly sweaters.

What you won’t see, though, are crowds of Santas, reindeers and snowmen.

In this unsure economic climate, retailers are stocking up on products that last beyond the season. It’s a service to customers who are looking for real value from their purchases, according to the stores, and, hopefully, it will keep the clearance racks from overflowing on Dec. 26.

It’s also a recognition that not everyone celebrates the winter season by opening presents on Christmas morning.

“We have a ton of festive and holiday merchandise without such obvious references to Christmas,” says Rebecca Weill, director of public relations for Gap. “Is this a conscious decision not to alienate customers? Absolutely. We want everyone to feel welcome, and everyone celebrates the holidays in a different way.”

Instead of pajamas decorated with seasonal novelty prints, Gap is touting “crazy-stripe” and fair-isle sweaters as some of its top gift items because they can be worn all through the winter and even next year. The fair-isle pattern, for example, “will never go out of style,” Weill says.

The colors and texture of the sweaters are “holiday-ish” but the red is more raspberry than a Santa Claus coat and the green is more like creme de menthe than forest, she notes.

Desk-to-dinner suits are strong items this season, says Kim Roy, president of Ann Taylor. The retailer’s “special-occasion” collection is heavy on silk separates with only a few velvet or sequined pieces.

She says women are looking for clothes that can be worn for a variety of occasions, such as a triacetate suit, that is easily dressed up or down. A shimmery blouse would make the outfit ideal for a holiday party but the suit can be paired with a tailored shirt for any new-year board of directors’ meeting.

“Customers are trending away from overly embellished items,” according to Roy, but ivory, black and red, which have an “emotional tie to the holidays,” are selling better than gray and silver, which, while festive, can be harder to pull off depending on the wearer’s coloring.

Roy’s advice to gift shoppers are to buy things that look “fresh.”

“You want someone to open a package and find something that is still relevant,” she says, which means the recipient doesn’t have to immediately pack it away for next year as they would a jingling silver-bells sweater.

The move away from novelty Christmas has been slow yet steady over the past few years, says Robert Kling, senior vice president of merchandising for Pier 1, the chain of home-decorating stores.

The economy surely is a factor, he says, but so is the desire to save time and streamline the whole holiday process. Putting up “winter” decorations, maybe a berry wreath or an embroidered table runner, means there is no specific date the items have to be displayed and no specific date they have to come down.

Snowflakes, for example, celebrate winter and its weather, not the holidays in winter. “A snowflake is very fitting in January so it transitions easier than a Santa,” Kling says.

Red also works as a holiday-but-not color, according to Kling. “Red is traditional at Christmas but it has an added surge as being a hot color in home and apparel.”

Color, he explains, follows its own calendar: The new year begins in the spring when the palette is light and filled with pastels, and jewel tones are for the holidays and the rest of winter.