It seems that Christmas is getting earlier and earlier every year and frankly, it’s time someone set the record straight for when early is too early.
We’ll start with the easiest, Christmas shopping. Specifically shopping for presents and gifts. When you have a lot of people to shop for, doing it all in a few months before Christmas can really hurt your wallet. So year round Christmas shopping is perfectly fine. There is no shame in taking advantage of the after Christmas sales. However, stores themselves are one of the biggest culprits in the increasingly premature Christmas celebration.
With stores having to pre-order Christmas stock in order to have it to sell for Christmas, they have to think of Christmas a few months earlier than most people. For stores, it is ok to set up for Christmas sales as early as November 1. That way they have plenty of time before Christmas and they are set up for November’s Black Friday sales. However displaying Christmas decorations before November 1 is unacceptable and worse than that, it’s an insult to Halloween.
However, the biggest Christmas offence is playing Christmas music anywhere before Black Friday. Radio stations are the biggest criminals of this offence and have led stores to keep up with the early Christmas celebrations they have started.
It is our duty as a society to at least pretend we care about the holiday traditions that take place in the second half of the year before Christmas ends the year. So remember, don’t sing Christmas music before the time is right and have a great holiday season.
