To think Christmas was better before it started mid October and there were beauty advent calenders etc?

[malificent7]

I love Christmas but it is becoming increasingly out of hand. Popped into Hungry Horse pub in September and they had a frickin Christmas tree up to advertise their December menu.
Why are there now £100 gin advent calenders and as much as i love decorations do we really need piles of tat everywhere?. I think it is more magic if it starts later and there is less pressure to spend squillions.
Aibu to think it has gone a bit crackers?

( pardon the pun.)

I put my tree and decorations up on Xmas Eve and they come down on NY day.

It only is if you take part. Christmas has always started to sneak into shops after the 'Back To School' promotions, and then launches properly after Halloween. This isn't new.

I've never had an advent calendar other than chocolate but tbh I can see how it might be a nice gift for someone with an Oct/Nov/Dec birthday or as an early Christmas present.

It's not getting earlier - it was always like this - you're just getting older!

I love an advent calendar, but don't start any of it until December. .

I gave in a few years back and decided to shop for some food stuff early. I made the mistake of not checking the use by date of a chocolate log. (Not the kind you refrigerate). You know, a Yule Log, for Yule. Which this year, by the way, is 22nd Dec till 2nd jan. Was at relatives for Xmas eve/Day and ended up opening it around 28th Dec, only to find it had gone out of date on Christmas Eve. Stupid.

So the next year I thought “i’ll Get this year’s when I do my Christmas shop on the 21st”, and there were bloody none left!

I remember trying to get some decorations a week before Christmas last year and they’d taken them down in matalan 🤦🏼‍♀️ I’m happy for it to start towards the end of November.

I love Christmas but it does start way too early. I work at The Range & the big Christmas tree was up in September! Get Halloween & Bonfire Night out of the way & then bring Christmassy stuff into the stores 🎄

Christmas for me is 5th December ( day after DD birthday the only thing that start son 1st is advent calendar) to the 3-5th January depnding how I feel always keep them up until after hogmanay and visitors but not always until 12th night, I don't mind things in shops after Hallowe'en as some people need to post abroad and last day for posting is often beginning of December but I don't want to hear carols or christmas songs for 7-8 weeks prior

I’ve been Christmas shopping since August! I’m on maternity leave so the pennies and pounds are under a microscope for us just now. It’s meant I could get my gift ideas sorted (making a real effort to cut down on pointless tat so have been thinking carefully what to get everyone), watch prices, compare, arse about on Cashback websites and spread out all the deliveries. I’m pretty much done, so sitting on my laurels looking forward to Christmas crafts and baking with DSD, visiting family, cosy nights with Christmas films and generally having a lovely chilled out festive season.
I used to be in the “December only” group but I’ve found this way to be more relaxing and cost effective than stressful last minute panic buying etc.

Unrepentant Ebenezer here. I'm already looking forward to my favourite holiday: Easter!

YANBU. It drives me mad.

Expensive advent calendars

Christmas eve boxes

Elf on the Shelf

Constant adverts on the tv, the shops just want £,£ and more of your £.

I love Christmas but it really isn't about 'stuff' for me.

My friend asked what my ‘theme’ for my Xmas decor is going to be this year!
I get my same precious decs out each year and will use those same decs every year until I die! I will never have a new ‘theme’.
It made me sad thinking about the waste of people buying things just to bin them after a couple of weeks.

YANBU, it is becoming too much of a marketing opportunity and it does seem to be starting earlier.

YANBU. I don't mind the advent calendars but it doesn't feel special when it's shoved in your face for a quarter of the year. By the time the 25th actually arrives I'm sick of it.

Agree totally.

I love Christmas. I won't be putting my decorations up until December though.

I've done a fair chunk of the Christmas shopping and am hoping to have it all wrapped and cards sorted (don't send many anyway) by the first week in December. That way I get to enjoy it. I don't spend any more because stuff is available. I tend to have a list to stick to.

Our Christmas market is starting at the weekend and I'll be getting a few stocking fillers from there as there are local traders.

I was so happy today to see in our old fashioned little shop a traditional advent calendar, the ones with glitter and no chocolate. The ones where the excitement was about finding the number and seeing what the picture was and admiring how lovely the actual calendar was, not for mindlessly ripping off the card and stuffing another lump of chocolate in your mouth. My husband had no idea what it was. I bought it and have banned any kind of advent calendar containing items!
It's all too much, too plastic for me. My kids dont get the bleepy flashy stuff in general our Christmas tree goes up maybe a fortnight before Christmas maybe a week. It's down on 1wth night and heaven forbid or I'm stuck with ot until candlemas due to my superstition nature (thank goodness for non drop trees - when I was a child I would gave been left with a tree skeleton after that time!).

You only spend squillions on Christmas if you want to - everyone 'does' Christmas their own way, and if you don't want to buy gin advent calendars or whatever then don't. Absolutely your choice.

I don't think 'Christmas gets earlier every year' etc either. I distinctly recall Christmas trees in shops in early November when I was a kid and I'm ancient. Also our town's lights were always switched on on the Thursday after bonfire night every year, way back in the 80s. In the early 90s I had a Christmas job in a department store which started in the first week of November and there were carols playing on a loop and Christmas lunches in the cafe.

Engage as much or as little as you like, but for some people the opportunity to spread the cost of Christmas over a few months - not to mention the logistics of getting Christmas in in bits and bobs rather than a huge shopping spree, say if you're older/disabled/don't drive - is invaluable. Plus I like the sparkly lights being up for as long as possible (we decorate on the last Friday in November and they stay up until Twelfth Night, so we are definite engagers!).

Sorry OP but YABU

Btw DD has always had traditional advent calendars - John Lewis sell them, as do garden centres weirdly.

You don't have to join in. I love it all. You don't have to but the expensive calendars, I certainly can't afford them but it's all good fun.

YANBU.

Adult advent calendars - beauty, gin, pork scratching etc
Christmas trees and decs up in November.
Christmas jumpers and PJs and bedding and Christmas Eve boxes and all manner of tat clogging up the shops the minute Halloween is over.

It’s not fun. It takes away from the magic, to be honest.

I agree with Christmas shopping throughout the year to spread the cost but why does it have to be christmas themed stuff...i want to wear my pjs in March ...not just December.

So i dont want Santa pjs...just bormal ones which can be bought in june or December

Normal even!

This, a 1000 x this

I agree with the OP but it is not new, at least in shops. One thing about the US that I would import is that it does not start until late November.