Rants, Raves, and Praise → Way too early!

UGH! I went to Office Depot last night and they are already in full blown Christmas mode. Decorations everywhere and Christmas music that's twice as loud as their normal music. Don't their marketing monkeys know that Thanksgiving is the holiday for November?

When asked how my visit was I told the lady it was WAY to early to start Christmas marketing and she quietly told me how much she and her fellow employees hated it. She said their torture started late last month.

i remember when.... wow, im only 32 and im starting to type that? ouch. but i remember as a kid this time of year theyd have thanksgiving decorations for sale, cornacopias and paper turkeys etc, now the second the clock strikes midnight on haloween they start pushing christmas stuff and of course im some how anti christmas and in turn anti christian for being sick of it. i mean what do they expect? 2 full months of it, plus the bell ringers from hell. ugh. i dont even celebrate it any more. no point its so dang commercialized.

i guess ive turned in to scrooge, to bad its not scrooge McDuck, he at least was loaded.

Christmas stuff was out at Sams a month ago.

I was surprised at Lowes how early they started selling Halloween stuff, but was even more surprised that weeks before Halloween they had already switched everything to Xmas. Seriously!?

Same with Costco and Target around here.

A few years back, I went into a Sears store to pick up some string for my lawn trimmer. They were starting to put up the Christmas decorations. This was in August!

The rule at our house is that you can't get anything Christmas related out until AFTER Thanksgiving dinner over and naps are complete. We're not into getting into the Black Friday crowd and we will not contribute to the new greedy tradition of opening for Black Friday on Thursday.

All of the retail places jumping the gun like this is one of the things that is ruining Christmas for a lot of people. As mentioned by earlier posters Christmas used to begin the day after Thanksgiving. That it moved to the day after Halloween and now it's even earlier than that! It's become all about profits for retail stores and not really about Christmas!

If there is a "War on Christmas", Christmas is WINNING!!!!

Typically Price Club does theirs around September. I forgot which store (maybe them) but one year I've seen Xmas decorations around August.

I like Christmas.
I hate Winter. I despise, detest, and loathe Winter.
I only have two things to look forward to all Winter long: Thanksgiving and Christmas. After that, it's just 3-4 months of ass puckering cold.
So, I enjoy the extended Christmas season to help take my mind off of the suckishness that is Winter.

Was at our local Kroger - they had Christmas music playing... Though they were having a holiday sale/open house kind of thing.

Starbucks came out with there red cups on sep 1 I know becuse I got some on the PA turnpike.

Macy's, in SE Florida, started 11/1/14, with at least the dreaded MOR music. The staff says the cycle is short, and they are already seriously over it.

Decades ago, the owner of Jinxies, a serious drinking, and pool bar, on the square, in downtown Colorado Springs, after one Holiday season, kept delaying the annual take-it-all-down-box-it-up ritual, and at some point realized that it would just be so much easier to leave it all up, and so did, for years, adding to it as time marched on.

It became their accidental theme, and it expanded, everywhere, ceiling to floor. And so, years latter, no matter how bare of snow the Peak (Pike's), and other high elevations in the Front Range all were, no matter what the season, even under a 6000' altitude blazing strong, bright, Fourth of July sun, one could walk (or crawl...) up to the unimposing "Hotel" on the corner of the old square, and just by opening Jinxies door, and walking inside, know with absolute certainty that once your eyes slowly adjusted, that "It Is Always Christmas at Jinxies". "A pitcher, four long-necks and Slimjims, and a roll to get started on the tables and the box, please......"

It's day after Thanksgiving here to. (Even though I already know what I want for Christmas already this year)

Me to. After around the middle of jan it's just boring sit inside all the time until Spring.

yeah, they have the Christmas tree tent in the fron of Home depot here.
5 more yerars and it will start on July 4th

At the same time, all Christmas decoration is gone by New Year's and often before.
Did anybody ever realize in this country that Christmas start on Christmas Eve and end in the night of Epiphany?

WRT Christianity, Christmas is preceded by, "Advent", which is the fourth Sunday before Christmas day. This year, Advent Sunday will be November 30.

Drives me nuts... someone asked me the other day when we were putting up the tree in the apartment building lobby... sigh.

In my world, the Christmas season doesn't start until Santa comes down the road in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

They should just leave them up year around..

also FYI thanksgiving day was oct 13 at lest in canada

So you guys still have Christmas music and mall, grocery store, etc parking lots have outdoor decorations? We don't. No Christmas music, no parking decorations, VERY LITTLE, if any, in store decorations. I assumed this was some kind of "politically correct" thing and I assumed it was happening all over the country.

I was in Sears today and it looks like it is on its last legs...but it has looked that way for several years now. Macy's has had (in the Men's, Home and Children's store) the tree decorations out for several months but nothing in the Women's store.

I think starting Christmas early is yet another sign of desperate attempts to keep malls and any brick and mortar store (other than Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot) open. I was just reading that within ten years 50% of malls will be shuttered in this nation and the rest will close shortly thereafter except for malls in upper class areas.

That is the key to stopping the madness. People not participating. If no one shows up or purchases anything specifically designed for Christmas before 9:00 am on Friday November 28th ,and repeats that behavior for the next four to six years, then all this ridiculous early Christmas marketing and selling would end. The problem is not the retailers, the problem is the consumers. If consumers stop responding to this nonsense it will eventually stop. The retail employees would be ecstatic if the public would not respond to the early marketing. They hate door busters and all that nonsense.

I remember how long ago the sales day after Thanksgiving was very casual and late in the day. A calm day of just going out and being relaxed. An 8:00 am opening was early for a store and it was usually the Ace hardware place and similar home repair places. 9:00 am was more common. You got up an hour later than usual. A casual breakfast. Then we would go to the central downtown area of Chicago by the Illinois Central(IC) Gulf Electric Train Line. The fancy much more expensive train instead of the usual Chicago Transit Authority(CTA) buses. We would walk and look in at all the Christmas window displays of Marshall Fields, Carson Pirie Scott, and others. My parents would splurge for lunch at Marshall Fields during the time we were in the store. We got to see the huge Christmas tree that was inside. I loved going to Marshall Fields toy section and looking up at all the large aircraft models that were hung in the air. After that more window shopping. Heading home by (IC) we would stop in the train station and get some Broasted (broiled and roasted) chicken and fresh made juice drinks that were sold there. By the time we got home in the evening a few neighbors had their outdoor holiday lighting up and running, so we would walk the city block to look at those sights. There was no frantic rush to get a Christmas tree up or all your Christmas holiday decorations out. Taking two more weeks to do that was common. The city would slowly transform as more residences added lighting and tree displays in their windows. These were tasteful displays. They did not create daylight at night and illuminate the entire street. The fanciest houses had the new slowly color changing light systems and Christmas trees on rotating pedestals in the main window. Fast blinking was bad form. Slow fades. No music blaring. The crunch of the snow as people walked by and quiet conversations. We were a mixed neighborhood so there would be Jewish Hanukkah menorahs and Kwanzaa displays also. A couple of houses had all three holidays going at once.

If we really want some semblance of a relaxed atmosphere to return, more of us have to ignore the marketing, as you are doing.

I just look through the junk for some ideas when it is first put out. Then I find a pattern or how-to and make it myself, or shop online. I also stock up on things I'll need for crafts. Then I don't have to even look at the stores. Since no one usually has anything I have in mind, I might as well do it myself if I can. I don't think I've set foot in any of the Mall dept. stores in years. No reason to.

For the family member that lives in the UK, Amazon UK is great for both sides of the Atlantic.

People can't understand the big evil companies are made evil by their customers. Most consumers are too simple minded to understand that they are the cause of the evil things they do. If a company does something that's perceived as evil and consumers give an approval with their wallets they will continue to do what ever evil they are doing.

oh, you mean like the ones that complain about self checkout.... while using self checkout? i have never, and will never, use self check out. though being legally blind i just dont want to deal with a system that i have no doubt was not designd with folks like me in mind. heck, i cant count the number of times ive had to have a cashier help me with the point of sale card machine because some genius thought it was a great idea to use all light colors on it and have no high contrast option (seriously, when will the ADA catch up to this?) so i just know the self checkout would be the same.

some one mentioned the music, i had forgotten about that. time to pack the earplugs. that happy happy joy joy stuff constantly just gets on my nerves and puts me in a bad mood. personally id love for a store to be as quiet as a library, ha, never happen i know.

I like self checkout because I don't have to make stupid small talk about nothing with the cashier.

I like self-checkout so I don't have to be behind some idiot still writing a check or taking to damn long going through their purse/pocket or whatever. I just want to get the frack out of the store as quickly as possible.

I hear where you're coming from but there's another side that you didn't consider. The various retail groups work all year to create hype for this year's "In" present. They then create panic that the item is going to be in short supply. Thus people rushed to the stores the matter when they open to be sure they get this item for those they love! The same stampede would happen no matter what time the stores opened because of the pent-up demand created by the retail world. People are afraid if they aren't there when a given store opens they won't be able to get the item. True, they could go later and not worry about getting the "In" thing for a present but human nature to want to give your loved ones the "Perfect" gift!

wal-mart self check out is easy to use

you don't even have to touch the machine to use it ( except to put in the pin number or grab your change if paid by cash )

(except for typing in the code for fruits and vegetables )