Reader Kelly wants to let us know that July isn’t too early for a candle store at her local mall to start its Christmas marketing push…
Last night during a leisurely stroll through the mall, I happened to snap a shot of the Christmas Creep in a storefront window. And it’s only July! The picture is pretty crappy — I took it with my Blackberry, but I thought I would share it anyway. You know, there’s only 148 days until Christmas!
Nooooooooo. Christmas Creep in July? We realize they’re probably trying to be funny, but for some reason we still find it depressing.
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That looks like a craft shop. You have to remember, if you’re working on a Christmas sweater for someone, or other items that are hand made, it might take several months. I started knitting Christmas gifts in August one year.
Michael’s stores near me have had Halloween stuff out for over three weeks now.
Where is this place located by the way? A friend of mine works at a place like this, and they are already putting out Christmas trees (I assume artificial ones); she works in Beaumont, Texas.
Christmas Creep? I thought that was the uncle from out of town that was a little too eager to bounce you on his knee.
@SkokieGuy: no wonder you have issues. :/ Or, maybe you should just lay off the PedEgg shavings.
@dorianh49: There is nothing better than smoking a fat bowl of PedEgg shavings.
@dorianh49: I bet Martha Stewart could take some glitter, some red ribbon and turn a PedEgg into a lovely Christmas tree ornament.
A thoughtful gift that helps celebrate the spirit of the season, AND keep your feet silky-smooth.
I don’t mind Christmas creep as much as I do the expected money that we will hand over to the retail outlets. It seems like we usually disappoint the retail industry because we didn’t spend what they expected.
When I get a bonus from work I should not expect it or always count on it to be there for me and same goes for the retail industry. Christmas time is a bonus for them don’t count it until after you have received it.
Actually probably not a bad idea to start a little x-mas shopping. It’s so far in the back of my head, it took this article to slap me in the face and say “be prepared for once in your life”. I hate fighting the crowds to buy picked over crap, just to see the shit never get used. Last year I only bought gift cards. Period. I’m not much into gift giving, personally I hate it and only do it out of obligation.
At the nearby Hallmark outlet, they already have Christmas stuff out as well as halloween stuff.
@snoop-blog: I perfer making custom gifts for people. Writing poems, personal letters, framed photos, something that goes beyond what can be manufactured in a factory.
@chiieddy: Actually, the store is called Candles N’ More located at Colonie Center in Colonie/Albany, NY. The establishment sells mainly (wait for it)…candles. The “more” part of the name refers to little nick-knacks that one would find in an elderly woman’s household/nursing home to liven up the place for whatever season.
I was in a Borders earlier this week and they already had all their calendars out.
2009 Calendars.
In JULY.
I wonder how hysterical retailers are going to be around this Christmas season, which they’ll be counting on to make up for a lot of bad results the rest of the year.
Because my family has not been overly impacted by the economic downturn, and we are still talking about scaling back the holidays in a big way. I think this has been a wakeup call to a lot of us that spending these insane amounts of cash makes no sense.
@ophmarketing: They sell the 2009 calendars because they no longer sell the 2008s. Only a crazy person would want to buy a 2008 calendar in the middle of 2008, apparently.
@picardia: Last year my mother finally got her way and limited everyone’s purchasing power to $20 per person. We are consumerists first and foremost. It was hard to beat our addiction but obviously didn’t negatively impact the holidays in any way.
Yay for Christmas creep, though. I <3 Christmas.
The Opryland Hotel here in Nashville started the process of decorating
for Christmas yesterday. Takes them ~3 months to set up all the
lights, gnomes, etc.
http://nashvillest.com/2008/07/30/happy-hour-its-beginning-to-look-a-lot-like-christmas/
Harry
I think short-run “Christmas in July” sales are a good bit, but not if you are beginning the process of ramping up to Christmas. It’s a beating and I try to avert my eyes to it. The year has a flow and each season leads to the next. January arrives and we shuffle our holiday spirit back into the closet and let the magic grow dim. There are plenty of good cases to be made for keeping the spirit all year long, but I side with Robert Frost in believing that dawn goes down to day for a reason.
Things can’t be special all the time or else they wouldn’t be special. This is why Christmas Creep bothers me. I enjoy kicking off the fall with Labor Day and then getting into the rhythm of the season with weekly football schedules and so on. Pretty soon it’s time for the State Fair of Texas with Halloween right on its heels. Halloween carries you to Thanksgiving and for me, that’s when Christmas season begins. It’s a wonderful 5-6 weeks of Christmas songs, decorations, and good cheer. Extend that to 5-6 months and you diminish it.
@ophmarketing: And these are frequently the almighty “16-month calendar” that starts with September. I’m planning on buying one, ‘cuz 2008 can’t end soon enough!
If you want to buy a Wii for Christmas, you should start now
Sigh. How annoying and exasperating. Last week, I received a stupid catalogue touting the upcoming (August) release of some of Hallmark’s “Keepsake” ornaments. I admit that I’m a sucker for the Star Wars orns, but only at 50% or 75% off during the after-xmas clearance. And I sure as hell don’t want to be thinking about putting up the Festivus pole right after I returned from my sunny summer vacation!
I know it’s sad, but I am stoked for Christmas already. I am actually, no joke, listening to Christmas in Sarajevo by the Trans=Siberian Orchestra as I type this.
Living here in LA and being from the East Coast, makes you long for the change of seasons which never comes. So we’ve got a fall wreath made (thanks to Michaels)and Halloween decorations ready to go up. We’ll be prepping for Christmas in 2 weeks.
I am having a candle party and they are already out with the Christmas catalog…sigh.
lol, when I was in hobby lobby right around memorial day, they already had half an isle of christmas decorations out.
The Hobby Lobby near me has had a couple of aisles of Christmas stuff for a few weeks now. And it’s not the stuff for Christmas crafts, it’s decorations.
This is nothing, last month I got an email from Dunkin’ Doughnuts about buying gift cards for Christmas.
Jingle bells, batman smells, Gus’s parents may have killed a guy.
I’m glad being an atheist gives me a convenient excuse to NOT celebrate X-Mas. I ask my family not to buy me gifts and donate some $ to a cause of their choice (nothing political or religious) for their gift. I’ll usually buy them something small as well. It’s pretty awesome. No shopping.
I used to work at Michaels and every July, we’d get in our Halloween stuff and a good chunk of Christmas stuff. The goal of craft stores is to get rid of all holiday merchandise BEFORE the holiday. Otherwise it has to be heavily discounted, which loses money.
America is so hopelessly brainwashed by the Christmas bullshit, it really is my least favorite time of the year.
At a local independent toy store, they keep the Christmas stuff all year round.
Breach,
Maybe they want to escape from everyday life.
@Breach: The X-mas hype is just too much for me. I can’t stand how commercialized it has become. I hate to go to the malls at that time of the year and also watch every news report be about how people spent the night at local stores to get the best deals the next a.m., how jam packed parking lots are, how much less people are spending, etc. Christmas time is just a big fucking circus with all the sheeple coming out.
Here in NZ we have “mid year Christmas dinners”. The theory being that because Christmas is in the middle of our summer some feel left out of having the traditional stodge of turkey and plum pudding. Barbeque’s and salads don’t cut it for them. It hit it’s peak 15 years ago but thankfully it is not so popular (yes presents were done). Only the occasional restaurants and probus groups tend to do it.
@aliceblue: Mine too. In fact, I emailed the Consumerist photos of my July 5th Hobby Lobby receipt in front of Christmas ornaments, but they ignored it. Maybe because the photo was crappy, I dunno.
@Hongfiately: I agree with you on the “Christmas Creep”. I end up ignoring the x-mas sections as long as I can until November. Late summer in Texas is no time for x-mas decorations.
Hallmark has ornaments out now!