Before the last trick or treaters had returned home to embark on their week long sugar highs, stores were already dismantling their Halloween displays. There was no in-between within the candy aisles – no time for displays of stuffing, cranberry sauce, or other holiday fixin’s.
The Halloween candy, costume, and decorations disappeared as soon as Halloween was over and was quickly replaced with its Christmas counterpart. Orange and black packages were replaced with red and green; spiders, witches, and monsters were replaced with Santa and some reindeer. Displays showing homes covered in snow or winter scenes seem almost comical when the leaves have barely begun to fall. It all seemed a little forced, and far too early for it to be Christmastime.
As soon as Nov. 1 arrives, stores begin to prepare for their Christmas season. Retailers are pushing their holiday season sooner and sooner, with some stores starting to play solely Christmas music as soon as Halloween is over.
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Already, commercials are pushing a holiday theme, some even with the appropriate Christmas music to drive the point home. Christmas-themed movies, such as “A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas” are being released in the first days of November. Even Keene State College is already selling eggnog in Lloyd’s Marketplace. It’s impossible to ignore the increasingly early start of the Christmas season for retailers.
There was a time when the Christmas shopping season began the day after Thanksgiving, but now that day has turned into a holiday all its own, Black Friday.
From August onward, it’s a non-stop slew of holidays, or retail holidays – back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the Holy Grail of retail holidays, Christmas. Even the flavors associated with the seasons are becoming their own holiday. Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are both well-known for their pumpkin, gingerbread, and other flavored coffees and treats, with the pumpkin and fall flavors being immediately replaced with Christmas-themed flavors as soon as November hits.
It’s impossible to ignore this onslaught of the holiday season, no matter when the season starts or ends. However, if the retailers are going to continue to remind us that, in the minds of these retailers, the reason for the holidays is to spend obscene amounts of money on decorations, costumes, candy, gifts, or any other number of holiday-specific items.
Instead of buying into the false commercialized ideas that stores want, avoid them. The biggest motivation to retailers is financial; if you don’t want Christmas crap being shoveled out at Halloween, then don’t buy into the madness and hold off until a more appropriate time. If we don’t start complaining, perhaps Christmas stuff will just stay out all year.