Think you’ve had enough of Christmas Creep? Welcome to the U.K., where the Movement for the Containment of Christmas is fighting back against the ever-growing holiday retail season. While some of the group’s efforts are civil, it has engaged in guerrilla tactics, including gluing the lock of a shop that had begun selling Christmas cards in August.

The group is battling an environment where, much as in the U.S., retailers are stretching out the season in hopes that cash-strapped shoppers will open their wallets. A spokesman for a chain store told the Mail, “With only three more [monthly] pay days until Christmas, many of our customers have started their festive shopping earlier than ever in a bid to spread the costs this year.”

The anti-creep activists haven’t taken kindly to messages like that, and have warned retailers not to sell holiday-related items until November — or else:

Last month the group glued shut the door of a shop run by Mind, the mental health charity. The manager of the shop in Leeds, who asked not to be named, said: “A man phoned and said our lock had been glued because we were selling Christmas cards far too early. He said if we pass the shop and we see you are still selling Christmas cards we will glue the lock up until the cards are removed. We have removed our current Christmas cards sales display for the moment. This is great pity as we have been selling off last year’s stock and making £70 a week for charity.”

As much as we sympathize with the Movement’s goals, they’d be a lot more successful if they were a little less Scrooge-like. Christmas in August may be a humbug, but threatening charities — and vandalizing their stores — isn’t going to win the group any friends, unless you count those three ghosts creeping up the stairs.

Half of us are Christmas shopping already [Mail Online]

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