Picture it: you walk into a department store in October, ready to get your pumpkins and spooky decorations. Instead, you’re hit with blasts of red and green, plastic Santas, and festive lights. From Target to Michael’s, it seems that every year, Christmas decorations hit the shelves earlier and earlier.
Through a phenomenon known as “Christmas Creep,” we tend to see holiday decorations much earlier than we anticipate. This is often because stores want to increase both their retail and online sales. While it may be true that a preview of decorations can increase profit, to me, it’s vexing to see when trying to buy for a different holiday.
For many shoppers, the decor arriving ahead of schedule only serves as a reminder that Christmas is coming, and this serves as an annoyance for anyone trying to shop for a different holiday. Even with this reminder, a lot of shoppers will end up forgetting about or putting off their shopping entirely anyway. So the Christmas Creep doesn’t even actually work as, year after year, it gets more tiring to see the tinsel so early.
Generally, stores try to play into the giddy Christmas-lover’s behavior. Some customers want to get their Christmas shopping done earlier and unfortunately, those shoppers get to have their way. However, the rest of us must suffer the bombardment of snowflakes and sparkles, when we are trying to shop for witches and ghouls or leaves and turkeys.
There is no doubt that the holiday season is a happy one. It is psychologically proven that festive decorations boost the mood. Even so, it doesn’t make sense to prolong the dopamine boost.
If Christmas decorations come too early, all the festive feelings will be gone by the time the yuletide season finally rolls around. It’s much more exciting to feel that ecstatic, nostalgic feeling when December finally arrives, rather than to waste it in early October.
Having Christmas decor in people’s faces too early is irritating, and it serves no purpose other than increasing sales by a little bit. It’s bothersome to see Santa before December, and it ruins the mood for when his time finally comes. Before stores bring out the wrapping paper, at least let the leaves change color and give our pumpkin spice lattes a chance to cool.
