It’s the same every year. You get home from trick-or-treating on October 31, set down your bag of candy, and begin to assess the damage that your Halloween costume sustained over the course of the night. The clock hits midnight, and suddenly, the haunting sounds of Mariah Carey begin to play in the distance.

It always seems like fall has barely begun when the retail stores start marketing for Christmas. Every Spirit Halloween that popped up seemingly overnight has disappeared just as quickly, and each store you go to has abandoned and discounted fall decorations in favor of snowmen, lights, and Santa Claus.

Christmas is an amazing holiday, but when the “Christmas season” starts before winter, you miss out on enjoying a lot of the other holidays. Fall is full of holidays, and it is frustrating to see Veterans Day and Thanksgiving skipped over in favor of a holiday over a full month away.

It would be wrong to argue that Thanksgiving should be as equally marketed as Christmas because you don’t traditionally buy gifts for Thanksgiving. However, stores start preparing for Halloween in August, and if you’re lucky, they will have a small fall section then. If you aren’t lucky, you end up with an avalanche of snow-covered decorations that skip over Thanksgiving entirely.

Even Christmas itself seems less important because of retail stores. Marketing is everywhere, and the Christmas season begins when the stores decide that it does.

However, if the season starts in October, the Christmas season has lost its magic and feels repetitive and boring instead of special and exciting by the time December 25 comes around.
Christmas shopping is also significantly more difficult when stores begin promoting it so early. Once the marketing begins, the “Christmas rush” begins, and everyone starts worrying about buying Christmas presents. Even people who are planning things out a month ahead of time feel like they are behind.

Obviously, some things take a lot of planning or coordination, and some gifts do need to be considered in advance, but there’s no reason that Walmart and Target have to start promoting their stocking stuffers nearly two full months before anyone will use them.

The way that retail stores push Christmas used to be more understandable since stores would sell out of gifts and would want to give people the most time and restocks possible. However, since most people do their gift shopping online now, there is no real purpose for stores to rush into the holidays.

Retail stores start Christmas earlier and earlier every year, and it makes the season feel overdone and tacky.

Christmas is supposed to be an enjoyable time that is exciting and special because, as the old proverb goes, “Christmas comes just once a year.” However, when “Christmas” lasts for months, it loses that special spark that people look forward to all year round.