Rushing the Season(s)

"Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way...."

Oh wait, it isn't Christmas time yet?  It's almost two months away?  Well, you could've fooled me.

Halloween was just last week, and already plastic Santa figures and garlands adorn store windows. Many of them were even there before Halloween.  When I ordered a chai at Starbucks the other day, the cup was red with snowflakes.  Very holiday, if you ask me.

from www.uncrediblehallq.net

It's not like we don't go through this every year, but still, it always bugs me.  What I want to know is, why do retailers always feel it is necessary to get such a huge jump on the season?


It's funny that this is coming from me, because at the change of almost every season when I was younger, my mom accused me of "rushing the season."  As soon as the weather started to warm up, I would break out the shorts, even if it wasn't that warm yet.  As soon as we felt the crispness of fall in the air, I'd have a sweater on.

I think this had less to do with anticipation of a new season and more to do with eagerness to go clothes shopping, or to wear those favorite things I'd packed away from last year.

I still feel that way to some degree, especially living in a place with really cold winters. It's amazing how one's personal climate adapts to surroundings.  My first winter here was tough.  For the first time, I purchased a big, puffy down jacket that made me feel like a penguin waddling around.  I pulled it out in October, already shivering.  People just laughed at me and told me to just wait until January. It was brutal!

By the time I completed the hazing of that first, frigid, snowy winter, I had totally changed.  When spring rolled around, as soon as the temperature rose into the 50s, I'd be outside without a coat because it was "warm" by comparison.

But the retail rushing of seasons is something else entirely.  It just feels wrong walking into CVS when it's still shorts weather to find candy corn and toy pumpkins on the shelves. Or when Christmas has barely concluded and Valentine's candy is already on display.

If this is perplexing for us, it's undoubtedly perplexing for our kids as well.  Anna already thinks it's Christmas time even though we haven't made it to Thanksgiving yet.  She has informed me she's not going to sit on Santa's lap, but she will tell him what she wants.

Anyway, thanks to retailers' anxiousness for Christmas to be upon us, Anna thinks we are going to buy presents at almost every store we visit.  This season is difficult enough with its focus on massive consumption, and the way the Christmas machine cranks things up a little sooner each year - or at least it feels like it - without giving kids additional time to get hyped up about the tons of presents for which they are hoping. Tearing them away from these displays can be challenging sometimes.

Some people have hypothesized that this is exactly why retailers do it: as soon as this stuff is out there in view of kids, they will want it.  Then that will get them thinking about all of the other stuff they want for Christmas, sending parents off on a buying spree.

Christmas morning 2010

To top it all off, if they instill in the general public a sense of panic because "Oh no, it's almost Christmas and I haven't bought any presents yet!" then panicked gift-givers will begin shopping earlier, thus boosting sales for the retailers.

My point?  I don't really have one; I just felt like ranting a bit about the general obnoxiousness of it all.  This is nothing new, but for some reason it's more annoying than usual this year. That said, I will be glad when it finally feels like the holiday season to me, because it's always been a time of year I enjoy. I'm just not quite ready yet.