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It's sickening. Our K-Mart has had trees and all of the other junk out since mid July. JULY!!!! Ahhhhhhhh! It drives me insane. There are no seasons anymore. Thanksgiving may as well be knocked off the calendar, no one pays attention to it. People just go so overboard with Christmas.

As much as i love Christmas / the Holiday season, the 'early' factor is getting more and more absurd.

Hate this - should be nothing until after Halloween at the very earliest. It spoils the good parts of Christmas.

I'm a huge fan of Christmas - it's my favorite holiday. But, seriously, September is WAY to early.

I used to borrow Christmas books from my library in February when I was a kid. They would have to get them out from storage for me.

HA! I start planning Christmas in June and July. I love it! The earlier the better!

Reminds me of "its the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown" where the Peanuts gang go to buy stuff at the department store and the Easter decorations are put away, the Christmas trees are out, and everywhere there are signs "only 250 (or sth) days until Christmas".

On Saturday, the local Lowe's in Kansas City had the remaining stock of gas grills on sale and had put out the Christmas trees and decorations. Way, way too early for Christmas. On the flipside, I also find it equally weird to see decorated Christmas trees still up in people's living rooms mid-February.

Christmas should start the day after Thanksgiving and not a second earlier.

Those photos are from Marshalls which is part of the Maxx Group of discount stores TJ Maxx, Home Goods). Seasonal inventory, from swimwear to treee trimmings, are always put out early so they can garner greater market share and make quarterly numbers.

Retail stores and boutiques will probably start merchandising for Christmas towards the end of Oct/beginning of Novemebr.

I agree that it's probably too early for Christmas decor. Wait until after Halloween at the very least.

BUT, I will also admit that as a total Christmas fiend, seeing Christmas stuff in the store does make me absurdly happy. Weird, I know.

enormously too early to have xmas stuff out. we haven't even turned our heat on and we are starting to hear xmas music in the stores. it's absurd. and honestly (retailers take note!) it makes me cut my shopping short because it irritates me, which means i spend LESS money.

Seaside, I think what everyone is saying is that it's not just the discount stores. I went into Lowes the other day and it was a freakin' winter wonderland. I have an unhealthy obsession with Christmas, but there's part of me that feels like stretching it out and building it up like this pretty much guarantees that the day itself will be a letdown.

Thank God I manage an independent store and not a chain store...the owners agree with me that it's tacky to start decorating for the holidays before Thanksgiving.

Seriously! It's not even Halloween yet! Way too early.

Tabitha @ http://www.fromsingletomarried.com

Although I bought all of my ornaments after last Christmas, bought my tree on ebay in February and made my tree skirt in August, none of my stockings will be hung with care until December. I'm a sucker for ornaments so going to Homegoods this past weekend didn't help much. Good thing I didn't buy any.

i try to avoid anything Christmassy until december, and i am still sick of it by then, because it is just everywhere.

I love shopping early! I love seeing the new stuff out! It definitely helps put me in the mood (I do need a head start on that, as someone invariably deflates the happy around the 10th of the month) and moves me into gear on what to pass on vs. what to buy. I think when its crammed into just one month people make way too many impulse buys. When you loosen up the pressure you can drop hints about what you want to buy them and see if you get a warm/cool reaction and rethink your plan - with time to spare to enact it!

As for decorations, well... I collect ornaments, and even save during the year to create a budget for buying them. I'm more than happy to troll amazon in July to find some weird black and red ornament, and I love that other holidays now publish ornaments - Pier One had neon green, bright orange and glittery black ornaments, which are IMPOSSIBLE to find once the old red white and green come out.

And frankly, if you're a crafter, you must start early, either to finish projects to be given as gifts or to buy from crafters for the coming season.

It's a high pressure holiday for people, so I don't have any problem with the companies giving us more time to get the chore of shopping/decorating out of the way so we can actually ENJOY it for once.

Erm, Pier One had HALLOWEEN ornaments out, I meant to say.

I have had a rule of thumb for years, if a store plays Christmas music before December 1st I walk right back out the store. Plan on doing the same this year.

I find it unreal that I am still in shorts when they start unpacking Christmas decor (I live in Toronto).

Kah, robertcraig, ehat and That70sHeidi are my kind of folk.
I love Christmas!

I come from a family who doesn't celebrate Halloween (instead, we celebrate dia de los muertos) and never really caught on to Thanksgiving since the Spanish didn't have Plymouth rock, so immediately after summer (September or October) we start to think about Christmas since it's the next big holiday in the Catholic year. So for most of you, this might be a tad early, but for those of us who don't follow the North American schedule of holidays and celebrations, it works out just fine, thank you.

And khrystena, I walked into Rona at Warden and Eglinton yesterday and found that they've already put their trees up. Odd, for a hardware store. Also, Christmas Street has started in The Bay at Fairview, Scarborough Town and Pickering Town. So steer clear of these places if I were you!

Oh, and to answer the original thread question: just because stores are putting their Christmas merchandise out, this shouldn't dictate when you start decorating your home.

If Marshalls and TJ Maxx jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?

I'm about with maike. It's just not special anymore when it lasts half the year. Yes, I shop for gifts early. But if they've got to start pushing holiday merchandise down our throats because we need six months to plan, I think this holiday has gotten way, way out of proportion. I mean, who's buying loads of ornaments *every* year? Simplify, people. Whatever winter holiday you celebrate, it was not originally intended to be a shrine to capitalism.

One upside? Sometimes I can get ornaments on clearance by the time I actually want to start decorating. Last year I think I put stuff up around the second week of Dec. I'm pushing back.

Not a day before Thanksgiving.

halloween is my favorite holiday. i might start thinking of what i want to be a couple months ahead, but that doesn't mean i want to see the crap filling the store shelves months in advance. if everyone had to see monsters and skulls and hear the monster mash and thriller playing overhead for three months prior to halloween, i don't think THAT would go over so well. (although *I* would personally enjoy it much more than having to see a thousand versions of a fat man in a red suit.) why should xmas be any different. why do you have to be hit over the head with it for months to have it on your mind. the spirit of xmas has much less to do with all the xmas crap than it does with the simplicity of doing good for others. the consumerism of this holiday has gone too far. it's oversaturating and desensitizing. i'd enjoy it far more if it was only the weeks leading up to xmas, not months. it would be more special and exciting.

also...just like kids don't know they are eating a once living animal, because all they see is packaging, i think we are also in danger of children not really understanding what xmas is either.