Postpone Christmas til November, Halloween til October etc.

Well mince pies would never last months in this house. I know some might find it weird but we eat them.

I think there are some shops whose whole business is about seasonal products, so I don't really mind if places like the Range have this stuff all year round. But it's bonkers not to be able to buy items that you still need in summer in supermarkets or clothes shops because they are filling their spaces with autumn ranges. Or selling mince pies in October that won't keep until Christmas, so are clearly not being sold to help people spread the cost and prepare.

The Range had Christmas item in last week .. July !!!!!

Funny how Germany and Austria manage to not have seasonal stuff our months in advance (other countries are available, those are the ones I’ve spent time in).

I get the point about school uniform, but our local WH Smith had a “back to school” display before DS broke up for his summer holidays.

i suppose for Scotland it is. But yes, not nearly time for back to school for England and wales

Actually I have to say I am sick of seeing all the back to school malarkey. Just saw an ad on FB saying “it’s nearly time to send the kids back to school” um no it isn’t, we still have 4 weeks left!!

I think some of us (definitely looking at myself here) also need to try and fixate less on these particular times of year to the point where they end up miserable every January feeling like there's nothing to look forward to. I think I've decided I'm going to try and avoid some of these shops with early displays and focus on some more living in the moment even if I'm not a summer person.

I think we all need to buy less seasonal crap that ends up in landfill

Amen to that.

Yes school uniform needs to be all year. The only time I bought uniform in the summer was for their first year at school. After that it was whenever they either outgrew it or had worn it out

I'm okay with selling school uniform all year round - kids grow, they rip the knees out of their school trousers etc.
But most of what we buy for Christmas presents is available all year - if you've got small kids, you can still buy them toys earlier in the year to prepare. We don't need aisles of baubles and wrapping paper from September onwards. I think we all need to buy less seasonal crap that ends up in landfill .
I do get the point about some shops not having the capacity to store all stock for it to be sold in the correct season but equally a lot of consumable stuff is made especially for sale before it's actually needed. Most of the mince pies for sale on October would go off before Christmas - they don't need to be in the shops that early. It ruins the specialness - it's good to have certain things only available at specific points in the year.
Same with non seasonal fresh food - yes, we buy it if it's there but it doesn't really need to be available all year round. Fruit and veg tastes better if you buy it when it's in season, rather than looking great but tasting like watery shite because it's grown for appearance, not taste and has been kept in storage or flown halfway around the world.

No 🎄🎅🏻

Mince pies are just food, you can eat it anytime, if people like it why shouldn't they be able to buy it? It seems very controlling to dictate when shops can sell or I can buy mince pies.

I bought my kids uniform mid June, a whole month before we'd broken up 😂 I meant to buy it earlier, I've ordered it at Easter before now for September. It means I've only got school shoes to pay for last week of August (booked my Clarks appointment last week!)

I love the Christmas stuff being out early, advent in church tends to be mental so I'd rather get organised early. Our tree and decorations go up mid November.

I'm not fussed on the autumn/Halloween stuff but capitulate because my DC loves it.

I am probably not your target voter though 😂

Do they?

I had no idea and I'd consider myself a TK Maxx fan. Interesting.

It’s a known thing in TKMaxx. People wait in anxious anticipation for their Halloween stuff. Why wouldn’t they buy into it?!

Why do you care?
Some people need to buy gradually.
If you don’t like Halloween stuff in August…. Just don’t buy it.

I'd also argue that "back to school" is needed in July as our kids here go back 14th August. (Scotland). But "back to school" also infers the need to buy all "new" stuff even if you don't need it / haven't grown out of last year's which is also ludicrous.

100% agree! Life goes by fast enough as it is!

A lot of people try to spread their Christmas spending, so I get that.

But I too saw Halloween stuff in TK Maxx yesterday and thought it was a tad ridiculous.

At least let's get back to school over first

It had probably sold out.
They wouldn't have removed any.

Last year, John Lewis had removed everything Christmassy by Dec. 17th and there was no festive wrapping paper to be had.

I really very much object to the "christmas = buying loads of stuff" ethos. It's depressing and wasteful that so many people spend so much money on tat and "stuff" that they have to spread their spending over 5 months. Also nobody needs any of the halloween stuff they have already in TK Maxx.

I worked in a large supermarket for a couple of years and I do understand what you are saying.

The amount of seasonal items that a store predicts it will sell, especially Christmas, would probably fill the back room storage 10 times over. The supermarket I worked in used to have an enormous marquee that used to go up in the compound behind the store around mid November for extra storage.

And I think it's definitely got worse over the years as Christmas has got more commercialised and more faff gets added (Christmas Eve boxes, Elf on a Shelf etc). So people buy more because they feel they ought to. Thinking about another thread, would this load of new faff be a thing if men were mostly in charge of Christmas? Possibly not.

Plus a lot more families have two full time working parents and it's not as easy to do Christmas shopping in the week beforehand if you are both working and juggling nursery/school pick-ups etc., so I know I found it useful to be able to start picking up bits earlier. I used to do a bit of early Xmas shopping during the half term break at end of October to get the basics sorted - cards, wrapping paper, basic stocking fillers etc.

But put it all down an aisle away from the main shopping aisles now, and bring it to more prominent display in November. I still see no need to have mince pies on display now, with best-by dates in mid November. That is madness.

I am totally with you on that one, would be amazing.

Tk maxx has loads.