Postpone Christmas til November, Halloween til October etc.

[beguilingeyes]

When I'm Prime Minister I'm going to make this a priority (sod the economy).
No Halloween stuff in the shops in bloody July, nothing Chritmas until after Halloween, or preferably bonfire night. And please make bonfire night an actual thing again.
Chritmas starts so early now I'm already over it by September.
Is anybody with me?

I’ll vote for you. And if you make me deputy prime minister I will make it compulsory that all road works have to have a sign up telling you what they are doing. Like “we are fixing a hole in the water pipe” or we are joining the gas supply for the new housing estate to the mains”. That kind of thing.

I'm all for doing some prep work in advance, especially if I'm hosting, in my mind that can be separate from getting into and celebrating the season. It's just being practical.

I personally do think that if you're sick of the Christmas season by December 26th you've started it too early.

Totally agree! During Xmas I recall seeing valentines chocolates and even before my kid was back to school from Xmas break the Easter stuff was out 🤦🏻‍♀️

The ones near me started this around June before they'd even broken up. It feels like they were setting us a riddle, how are kids meant to go back to somewhere they haven't even left yet.

Also @beguilingeyes I will happily elect you but can I also add no Easter Eggs until March to your manifesto.

I hate how when you go to the shops on December 28th it's all moving on to the next season. At least let us enjoy it until New Year's.

I don't start the Christmas season until very late November at the earliest but I'm still sick of it by Boxing day because I see it every week in the supermarket from the end of August.

I agree, and I think you do need to allow the sale of advent calendars, fake trees and decorations in the second half of November (to allow time to buy an advent calendar and post it to Australia to arrive by the 30th Nov if required, and for people who decorate on 1st Dec rather than 24th).

But no one is going to want to buy Christmas themed goods after Christmas day. Food and drink for New Year will sell but no one is buying tree decorations or stockings on the 28th December (unless they are getting them reduced so they can be smug about doing "all their Christmas shopping" a year in advance 😂).
Shops need to sell products to survive. They are always one step ahead because they want to make lots of money. Otherwise they go bust and close down and everyone moans their town centre is "dying".

I think if I was some sort of dictator I'd allow the sale of Christmas related items before 1st December for those that wanted to prep but they would have to be special ordered and be in plain packaging and I'd ban all shop displays until then 😁

youve got my vote . My local TKMax has had Halloween stuff for about three weeks . Would definitely ban Christmas until mid to late November.

They could at least keep up the theming for some of the Christmas season.

Oh yes, you have my vote. Definitely no mince pies to stuff my face with tempt me before December 1st!.

God I’d absolutely love that!

After years of getting more and more fed up with Christmas we decided not to do it last year.

It was my best Christmas ever.

I just ignore it unless I am actually wanting to buy something.
Most Christmas specific goods are down the seasonal aisle. Just don't go down that aisle.
There is a branch of ASDA I sometimes go in that for ages I couldn't even find a lot of the Christmas bits I had seen advertised. It turns out their seasonal aisle is in an odd place in the store nowhere near the non-food merchandise where I expected it to be.
The fact I couldn't find that aisle shows it's easy to ignore it if you don't want to see it.

I think that's the best strategy.

I saw my first Autumn/Halloween stuff in bloody June! It really spoils the different occasions having them rammed down your throat so far in advance - if people want to buy early as is often mentioned then surely they can put some money aside rather than buying actual presents. I save a little bit each month as it’s the only way I can afford it but I’d rather be spending it on something else.

The supermarket I go into currently (as of yesterday) had a display of mince pies by the entrance doors and a load of those tubs of Roses by the tills. My local library had a prominent stand of Christmas themed books out last week (god alone knows why) and there were signs up around where I live for the fresh hell of a Christmas in July party recently 😳.

None of which are particularly easy to ignore. They aren't exactly ruining my life but I do spent a lot of time internally sighing because it's all so premature.

And BEFORE! I'm a retired teacher and it still annoys the feck out of me.

People are so busy now that it gives them more time to be organised for various occasions if things are in the shops earlier

You’d get my vote too - saw this advert from the Range today

From a retail worker point of view we simply couldn't cope. The sheer volume of stock we get through we just couldn't cope if it was just December, we couldn't store or keep stock on shelves. Yes we are now putting out Halloween but this is because our seasonal shelves are getting empty due to the reduced amount of summer items. No point getting more in as it now wouldn't sell.

Quite surprised how quickly some of the Halloween (well autumnal rather than Halloween itself) is flying out.

Exactly.
It sells as soon as it hits the shelves and gets replenished over and over.
If retailers waited until December they wouldn't sell nearly as much and wouldn't make enough money to survive.
Obviously if people stopped buying it then retailers would need to change...but people ARE buying it.

You get my vote.
TKMaxx was full of Halloween stuff in June. I had to avert my eyes every time I went in for holiday stuff.

Bit you could just keep seasonal stuff actually seasonal.

It's summer. There's no reason the seasonal aisle can't still be full now of paddling pools and garden toys etc. Keep the Halloween stuff till October, use the space in between times for more general items and keep Christmas stuff off the shelves till December.

People are only buying it because it's there. It's shops driving customers to think they need stuff early and creating a fake demand, not reacting to it.

I'm fully behind OP. There will be fines in the millions of pounds for un-seasonal stockage when she's in power!