Festive chocolate in first week of September - grim.

[OtraCosaMariposa]

My local Tesco on Friday started filling its shelves with selection boxes and chocolate reindeer.

A full 15 weeks until Christmas.

Cards on the table - I loathe all the tat around Christmas, It depresses me that people get caught up with the buy buy buy mentality pushed on them by the retailers. It depresses me that every time I walk into a shop for the next 4 months I am confronted by the tat. It's impossible to avoid it and I hate it.

I also don't buy the "oh people need to spread their shopping over the year" argument. I totally get that people feel they need to save over the year to afford the Christmas they want. My brother is in a seasonal occupation and earns the bulk of his money between June and September, so buys Christmas presents through the summer. But why would you need to start stockpiling food so early? Just put the money aside, or get one of those cards all the supermarkets do where you stick a fiver on a week or whatever. Then spend it in December.

Because money will get spent on other things. Savings are great if you can afford to save.

But anitagreen if things are that tight the money is better spent on shoes than a box of chocolates anyway!

Would you really begrudge someone spending a couple of quid on selection boxes in September, being poor sucks year round, but especially so at Christmas.

Its a fairly privileged position to not have to spread the cost.

And it’s all very well saying “oh go without if it’s so tight” - people, especially with children, want them to have the same festive experience as their peers, rather than low income marking them out as different again. If that means people buying months in advance, then I’m glad they’ve got that opportunity. It certainly doesn’t harm me!

This, a million times over.

Every year we get these misery gut threads. There’s 3 pay days left for a lot of people. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen.

I fucking love Christmas. I've got a few bits in already, hoping to stave off January bank balance misery (Morrison's Finest salted caramel nut medley is the business, fyi). Was most disappointed when I popped into John Lewis last week and there wasn't a fairy light to be seen.

That said, I also agree that large amounts of waste are sad, rather than festive. I always request food/drink/shower gel if anyone asks what I want and try really hard to buy things I know the person will use. I also try to make the inevitable-but-non-negotiable-for-me waste of cards and wrapping paper recyclable at least, by avoiding anything with glitter and foil on it. We don't buy new decorations, so I guess that's something.

There's a huge Tesco near to where I work.

As you go up the travelator to the shop, you're met with a gigantic wall of tubs of sweets.

Pallets of them.

YADNBU

These shops need to squeeze as much revenue out of the festive season as possible if they want to survive.

There’s mince pies in my local supermarket. I nearly did a double take when I saw them yesterday (vile things, even at Christmas).

I’m a bit fanatical about Christmas - I bloody love it. I welcome the early chocolates and mince pies.

To be fair, you can get mince pies year round, they're just really bigged up come October, and they put them in a festive box rather than the bog standard one.

@OtraCosaMariposa Yes things was that tight and it's not about chocolates it's about Christmas in general it's my children going to school and not feeling left out when others, are speaking about their presents. It's making sure they have a proper Christmas dinner and all the trimmings like everyone else. It's bus fair to visit relatives in the Christmas season. It all adds up.
Luckily this year we are a little bit better off so we shouldn't end up like that again but it's always a possibility when you have no savings and your credit is that bad you can't take out an emergency loan (which is a good thing now).

If you need to spread the cost (and many do) then you can buy presents, chocolate, sweets etc all year round.

The Christmas sale drive from August / September onwards is totally unnecessary. It's not like these are the only 5 months of the year in which Quality Street suddenly becomes available.

This consumerist culture of needing to buy a tonne of crap to do something "right" is having a huge impact on our collective mental health, our waistlines, and the state of our oceans, and frankly the supermarkets need to be more responsible.

I never understand the complaints about christmas cards appearing in August.

Do people not realise that the last posting date before Christmas for many many countries is usually in September?

if things are that tight the money is better spent on shoes than a box of chocolates anyway!

I don't think I've read anything this mean for a long time. Yet another way to kick a low income family, struggling to make ends meet feel even shittier because not they shouldn't buy some sweets or chocolates for Christmas...

Clearly Op you must be hard of thinking if you can't get your head around the fact that if you've saved some money and something breaks down then you use that money. If they've bought a couple of tins of sweets in September then at least they know that their children will have some festive cheer.

When did empathy become an added extra to a personality and not something that everyone should practice? especially those living in their ivory towers

@SistersOfMerci Thank You for that comment it did sting reading the OPs reply

@Chouetted only if you post by surface mail (which almost noone does nowadays). I was posting sales internationally up to 20th December via regular Royal Mail International Standard air mail, and they all arrived on time.

I love Christmas - totally adored it since i was a child. But the things i like about it now are different from what i liked 15 years ago.

I have bought some presents - mainly because i saw them and knew it would be the kind of the thing the person would like/need or i jad planned to get anyway and it was a good price. I don't buy food stuff til way nearer the time and i do find now i buy much less both present wise and food wise. Last year we had very little waste and i do think that was a good thing.

My big objection is easter eggs. There is no need to have easter eggs coming into the shops between christmas and new year (yes my local corner shop im talking about you!)

@Lockheart Surface mail is still MUCH cheaper than airmail. I just don't think it's as unreasonable to sell cards within the timeframe for surface mail as people consistently make out on these threads.

@Chouette people could buy their cards in the January sales - I always do this! They don't go off and they're super cheap in January. It's worth considering if you don't do it already.

So personally I'd still say shops selling cards in August is unnecessary, as I can never understand why you'd pay full price for them in August when you could get them at 25% of the price in January...

It’s a shame you’re spending so much mental energy getting worked-up about this, OP.

I like Christmas in December. I’m not very materialistic and avoid plastic/waste as much as possible so keep it quite low-key and family-orientated. My tree goes up on December 8th, and that’s when Christmas starts for me.

That said, there’s lots of stuff not relevant to me on the shop’s year-round. My husband and I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day so I ignore the red and pink tat. We don’t have children so I don’t pay attention to the displays of children’s clothes and toys on every department store. I don’t do Halloween so happily ignore the masks and tat and tubs of jellies.

It’s not a hardship. I literally just take no notice.

^In the shops... my phone has taken to adding errant apostrophes everywhere since I last had to reset it. Grr.

So cards have to go on display in August to cater for the 0.001% of the population relying on surface mail to New Zealand??

That's the silliest argument yet.

I find it quite easy to avoid it all, Christmas doesn't even register for me until a week before but then I don't have to buy vast numbers of presents, so guess it makes sense to spread the cost in that case.

So cards have to go on display in August to cater for the 0.001% of the population relying on surface mail to New Zealand??

That's the silliest argument yet.

Why should they miss out just because you're a grinch?

does it matter ? people choose to buy stuff so the shops stock it, it gets eaten so people buy more, a win win for the manufacturers, a big thumbs up for obesity and other related conditions.

Just to add, I’m currently eating a hot cross bun.