With the holidays approaching, it’s hard not to notice the excessive amount of decorations and gifts currently clogging up shopping aisles. And although this blatant holiday exploitation is irritating all on its own, the fact that this has been going on since September is both outrageous and a little disappointing.
Since the first week of November, the official Target website has had a section devoted entirely to Christmas shopping, as did the Wal-Mart, Sears, K-Mart, and, strangely, Pet Smart websites (target.com, walmart.com, sears.com, kmart.com, petsmart.com). Even more, the Big Lots website included Thanksgiving decorations and merchandise in the clearance section over two weeks before Thanksgiving Day (biglots.com). These premature sales work to irritate customers, the people whose opinions retailers should listen to most. “[In November] there were already way too many Christmas decorations and tons of products that just hurt the season,” said Sophomore Sarah Levy. “The commercialization of the holidays basically defeats their purpose.”
And it’s not only the department stores– just as everyone was ready to bring out the turkey and cranberry sauce, movies like A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas and Arthur Christmas premiered in theaters, according to the IMDb website (imdb.com). Holiday movies like these being released in November is insane. While Christmas movies are are great, they should not be aired when it is still technically autumn. Such early exploitation of the upcoming holidays is definitely annoying, but it also inadvertently cheapens the actual celebration. For many, one of most enjoyable aspects of the season is the anticipation it always brings.
Across the country, children with Advent Calendars have been eagerly counting down the days until Christmas for years. However, it seems as though companies start the anticipation well before the 25-day period before Christmas. According to an online poll hosted by The Guardian newspaper, as of September 25, 92.5 percent of voters agreed that Christmas was coming too early and was negatively impacting the holiday spirit (guardian.co.uk). This shows that if the media has been celebrating since fall, overall excitement does not increase– it fades, disappointing many. The holidays have always come fairly quickly, but in recent years it seems as if Santa’s sleigh has gone into turbo drive. Admittedly, this may be partially due to the worsening economy. In times like these, desperate retailers may try to push the season forward in an attempt to attract more customers. This strategy, however, is not as effective as it sounds. Even though sales do increase during December, according to The Global Economic Intersection economic newsletter, they haven’t shown much growth when compared to December sales data from prior years (econintersect.com). The economic benefits of an extended holiday shopping season are not large enough to outweigh the drawbacks.
As much as everyone enjoys the holiday season, taking advantage of it so early in the fall lessens its effect. Perhaps it is a result of society’s growing need for holiday cheer during harsh times, or maybe it’s simply a desperate attempt at increasing economic gain. Unfortunately, regardless of the reasons behind it, starting the holidays ahead of schedule is not working out very nicely .