For four years, we’ve been documenting Nordstrom’s resistance to that insidious holiday shopping problem known as Christmas Creep. But after all these years of making it clear that it wouldn’t be getting into the yuletide spirit until after Thanksgiving, there is some concern the department store might be feeling the creep’s siren song.

At the store’s downtown Seattle location, the display windows are already covered with phrases like “Mingle before the jingle” and “Create the joy.” And you can see in the SeattlePI.com photo above that at least one window sports a mirror ball hanging from red and green ribbons.

But a rep for the store says that Nordstrom is still abiding by its no-holiday-decorations-until-Black-Friday policy.

Explains SeattlePI.com:

The window decor downtown is commemorating the upcoming social season — not the holidays, [the Nordstrom rep] said. There’s a similar party theme on Nordstrom.com, which prominently features cocktail dresses and other festive clothes.

“The party season is revving up,” the website tells customers. “It’s time to put your own unique spin on dressing for every occasion – from a formal gala to a casual night with the family.”

The store rep says the message of these not-holiday-but-kinda-holiday-themed windows is “speaking to the season of getting together,” adding that the actual holiday decor that goes up in late November will be more of a winter woodland theme.

Nordstrom won’t do Christmas in October, so what’s this? [SeattlePI.com]

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