I'm not sure I like how they put "UP TO" in tiny type inside "50% OFF" either.

50% off? It will still probably be overpriced.

Wow, KB Toys is till in business?

why not look at the other side of the picture...The pumpkin is dressed up as Santa for Halloween?

Silly pumpkin!

I'm interested in why the consumerist team sees it as such a problem. As long as they aren't understocking current holidays it only helps their bottom line (which since the consumerist is so anti-corporate is probably what you take umbrage at) and don't hurt if not help the customers especially since before the holiday rush if you have the space to store it you can get better deals on holiday goods.

It's not about Christmas... it's about money. (Duh)

What ever gets idio--- erm, people, to spend money.

Happy Pre-non-specific-non-religious-Holiday to one and all!

Good call on the "This is Halloween" reference.

Maybe this will inspire Tim Burton to make another Nightmare-esque movie! No, wait, bad idea...

Don't like it? Vote with your dollars and don't buy any Christmas crap until after Thanksgiving. Or, don't spend money at stores which pull this crap. Not that the marketing idiots will catch on, but the accountants might.

My orange and ebony friends, too soon are you snatched from the shelves(your honest birthright), only to be hastily replaced by the smirking elves and plastic snow of a fat man run rampant;eagerly he twists the minds of innocent babes to cry only "I want THAT!" instead of a single sincere "I love you" among the electric frenzy of Yuletide greed. Bah, I say to him, Humbug! I shall sit by the last frail Jack-o-Lantern and stir my cauldron, muttering curses strained through a mouth stuffed with candy-corn! Huzzah!

So let's see.... 50% .. but not so fast, it's UP TO... so there may be some that are only 10%.. and in other small print "Select toys" so there's a table with some crappy junk on it for 10-50% off... and wait, there's even MORE small print I can't read... by the time you get into the store you realize that it's a bogus sale and you've been scammed...

I wish I could read that other small print.

oof. i was not too happy hearing "santa clause is coming to town" in the bodega this afternoon.i thought we had another couple of weeks before we were subjected to this.
it also seems cruel given the state of the economy.

@Marshfield: Says "lowest ticketed price", I think.

Christmas creep isnt just state side.
Even stores here have been stocking Christmas items for the past two months. They even play carols! Right now, the Christmas items are alongside the Halloween decorations, costumes and candy.
Strange though, I have not seen any Jesus or Santa costumes.

It's the same reason they refer to marijuana as a "gateway drug".

@scootinger: My thoughts exactly.

I just wish Halloween would die. Damn preaching satanism to kids is just wrong.

@battra92: I really, really hope you're trying to be sarcastic. Satanism has nothing to do with Halloween.

@scootinger: I though I smelled the reek of chapter 11 on then years ago, but the patient still lives apparently.

So is it acceptable to hand out candy canes to the little trick or treaters?

Where the heck is Chanukah in all this??!?!?

You know I hate to say it, but I actually HAVE considered buying some gifts right now...I've seen some AMAZING deals at the store on gift items, the retailers are really desperate. I figure I may as well get them now and save a few bucks on gifts I will buy anyway.

Remember it isn't Christmas anymore it is the Holidays.
Thusly, you can have a pre-holiday sale any time before December.

The pumpkin face should be eating a turkey leg and wearing a yamaka.

This crazy holiday combo seems to be happening faster every year. The economy kinda sucks, so the stores are trying to move their merchandise. They'd have to wait longer for the payoff for Halloween and Xmas stuff, so they move it out sooner... for instant gratification.

I'm not annoyed at all by seeing the Turkey Day and Xmas stuff out now. But I do think that these companies are expecting the consumers to be mindless and just buy stuff because it's OUT THERE. In a lot of cases, they're right.

It's also annoying for parents. I tried to show our toddler some Halloween decorations - but he was too excited about the Christmas trees. "Wow! What's That?" to which I answered - "Something we don't care about until after Thanksgiving..."

@TangDrinker:

Yep. Can't forget about getting the "gimmes" thrown at you much earlier. My kids handed me their lists for Xmas in August. *sigh*

@Triborough: The "Holidays" is intended to be Thanksgiving through New Year. So you could have pre-Holidays pretty much anytime between January and Mid-Novermber. Doesn't make it tasteful.

@Triborough:

There are other parts of the world that arent as overly liberal, PC and hypocritical about such things as the US.
Christmas is still Christmas.

@Maglet: But you can also hold the "you must behave" warnings at them for much longer.

Heinous. I'm old enough to remember when seasons were seasons, dammit, and the buildup to Halloween began in mid October. Sometimes slow (pace) = better.

@GothGirl:

LOL - win!

@morganlh85:
I think that's a great idea. It's also different from being dazzled by holiday-specific displays months and months ahead of time. Your version is just plain smart shopping. (I already have a few Christmas gifts stockpiled in my blanket chest at home.)

@algal924:
Man, I love some of the comments here! LOL

@JTK:
I don't think Consumerist sees this stuff as a "problem" per se -- just a huge vulgar annoyance.

@AlteredBeast: or thanksgiving. they totally just skipped that one too!

...and solstice!

@Sidecutter: On the surface no, but it is used as a gateway drug (same with Harry Potter etc.) to get kids into Wicca and other such things which I am not for.

I was planning on celebrating Oct 31st as the day Martin Luther nailed the 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg but honestly, outside of watching a movie on his life of watching Davey and Goliath there's not much for festivities.

@Maglet: This makes me think of the Chipmunk song for some reason.

The Consumerist dislikes consumerism?

@ElizabethD: I'm with "huge vulgar annoyance."

If "Christmas" runs from August through January then... it's not exactly a holiday anymore, is it? Meanwhile genuinely religious Christians are irked by what's happened to one of their two biggest holy days, and non-Christians are more than a bit tired of seeing Christmas sales and Christmas merchandise for six months of the year.

Me personally, I like holidays better when they're a special, set-apart, unlike-the-rest-of-the-year time. I'll take "from Thanksgiving through New Year's," because then we sort of get a festival month, but making Halloween into a Christmas merchandising festival is garish at BEST.

Also it's a sign of how foolishly our entire retail system relies on Christmas for its survival. The chains are worried about tanking due to poor holiday sales, so they're starting a holiday that, by definition, occurs on 25 December in the middle of summer to see if it works. Nice.

@battra92: OK, where's the "NUTS" tag?!? And he left out a reference to the evil, evil _Golden Compass_.

Just to join in the spirit of nutters everywhere, I intend to celebrate the birth of Capitalism this December 25th by praying to John Stuart Mill.

Even Santa is too religious for me anymore!

@battra92: Dude, really? Halloween is the amalgamation of Celtic pagan holidays celebrating the harvest and the Catholic All Hallow's Even (post 9th century) preceding all Saint's Day (aka All Hallow's Day) on November 1st. Paganism is not Satanism.

Then again, you might be surprised to know that Christmas is merely the celebration of Christ's birth (though not actually his birthday) which pairs nicely with the with the pagan and Roman new-year's festivals designed to give people hope and joy amidst the harsh winters after the winter solstice (the darkest day of the year, usually Dec. 23rd).

Whatever your religion, the Consumerist's point is to combat consumption for consumption's sake.

@GothGirl: with a shamrock in his hat, holding an Easter basket filled with valentines.

@battra92: If you're joking, you aren't terribly good at it; if you're serious, you are in dire need of some education.

@battra92: Please show me exactly where Harry Potter "gets kids into Wicca". I'm really curious about this.

Speaking of Wicca, maybe we should get rid of Christmas which originally had nothing to do with Jesus and more to do with Pagan Solstice ritual.

I suppose the only positive thing about Christmas Creep is that my beloved Halloween decorations go on clearance earlier, allowing me to make an even more awesome display in my yard.

YAY KB Toys! It's a non-stop crap-fest! Every single one of their stores that I've visited (I have an 8 year old, so yeah, I do buy toys now and again) is filled to the ceiling with craptacular pieces of licensed-character, flimsy, overpriced garbage and when they do have a sale that involves things my family might actually enjoy or use, it is either sold out, hasn't been delivered yet, or the ONE box of that item has been previously opened and pieces are missing.

For my daughter's birthday last year, I tried to get something, and the aisle where those things were stocked was absolutely and completely blocked with new merchandise still in crates. Seriously! There was more merchandise in those boxes than could have fit on the shelves in that store. They lost a hefty sale that day.

Seriously, I'd rather get my teeth pulled than go into KB Toys again. Ugh.

KB toys is INSANELY overpriced, I was actually scared at the prices in there. I guess its targeted at those parents who bring their kids into the store and buy them the first thing they see without looking at the price. They are probably 7$ higher priced on average on every toy I was considering on purchasing than other stores like Target, Walmart and Toys R Us. Of course you can save even more by getting your holiday toy gifts at Amazon, we have been using them for years to purchase the toys for the kids.

@battra92: Given your MLK reference I take it you're of the protestant persuasion? It might interest you to know that Christmas itself was a banned holiday to most Puritans around the colonization of the US. The puritan parliament in England felt the same way too.

Seems back then it was considered a gateway drug to Catholicism.

For reference page 163 in this book:
[www.amazon.com]

While that is pretty weak of them to do I am glad to see that KB is still in business. I mean kids are so damn serious these days that it is nice to see places like KB and Toys R' Us still catering to kids...even if it means overpriced plastic crap.

...for I am a Kidult!