To wonder why does Christmas start so early in the UK and are you happy with that

[TheFateofOphelia]

I was in John Lewis yesterday and a huge part of the ground floor was taken up with Christmas trees and decorations. My heart sank because, much as I enjoy the festive season, I want it to start mid Nov not end of August as it does in supermarkets.

Anyday now they'll be blasting out "Do they know it's Christmas." The what shall we do with Uncle Stanley on Christmas Day threads are popping up on MN. Do you like it starting in Autumn or will you join my pointless 'Let's keep Christmas in December' campaign?

But the majority of people are sensible. Whilst some may buy things early, they don’t have to put it up or hype up their children.

Other than garden centres and JL having Christmas Departments, I have not seen much in the way of Christmas decorations in the supermarkets. None in Lidl, Aldi or Waitrose over the weekend. A tiny amount in Sainsburys, which is focusing on Halloween.

That sounds wonderful and healthy. Over here is just gets too much.

I disagree that the majority are sensible. We've got an absolute crisis of consumer debt and impulsively purchased things in landfill. It is just objectively factual that as a nation we overspend and the shops encourage it.

Then they're doing it wrong. It should be a lovely time, not a burden and hassle. You do as much or as little as you want to do, nothing is compulsory.

Come on, lots of people (particularly the squeezed middle generation who have elderly parents and children) have lots of expectation on them to host lots of people over the Christmas period and partake in all the kids Christmas activities and don't have the option to opt out. We used to have 3 nativities to attend, plus parties for swimming club and football club and multiple Christmas concerts for all the musical instruments they played and choirs they sang in nearly all of which happened in the last week of the school and not something that is easy to opt out of because the kids want to do it. Now they are older the runup is much better because those activities have reduced massively.

And as for hosting, when I look at everyone I know there are a few of us in GenX who do all the hosting in each family, the older generation have served their time and all the younger generation are too young to host. Should we abandon the widows and singletons in the older generations and the young adults or maybe we should all be realistic about the fact that the burden of Christmas falls disproportionately on some shoulders and if you're able to have 'just my little family for Christmas' and a stress-free December maybe you should acknowledge that somewhere in your family there is someone taking on a disproportionate share of the Christmas burden to allow you to do that.

But most of all I hate that if you go into a supermarket on Christmas Eve they've taken down the decorations and have their sale signs up and that there are threads on here on Christmas Day saying 'who's taken their tree down and is clearing up all the chaos, I'm so over Christmas'

I know! Twelfth Night, people, decs are up til then!

And I'm making a note to avoid the Philippines from Sept to December!

The comments about spreading the cost, and posting overseas, are still mostly around the gifts - which tend NOT to be Christmas specific items! You can buy clothing, electricals, household, ornaments, anything bar food that you're likely to be giving as a gift without being "reminded" by decorations and Advent calendars in the shops. Literally the only things that need to be bought in the last month or so before Christmas are things that spoil like food, and topping up/replacement of Christmas decorations.

All the "organising" activities don't need the shops full of crackers, Advent Calendar and decorations before that, though I will concede maybe some cards - though the earliest overseas last posting dates for Aus/NZ are still at the start of December. The only exception is that BFPO may be a few days earlier.

I don't need to have whole aisles in shops trying to tempt me with Christmas specific items to remember who I need to buy a gift for each year, and if I needed to scrap any decorations at the end of the season I tend to buy replacements on sale straight after & put them away with the other decorations.

Today I was in 2 shops - Asda and Pets at Home. Asda had one side of half an aisle with Christmas stuff, the other side whole aisle was still Halloween. Pets at Home had loads of Christmas stuff for pets everywhere, and a tiny little strip about 1 metre wide with some rather sad looking remains of Halloween type items.

There's still 25 days to go before Halloween, then Guy Fawkes night 5 days after that. Then AFTER that we have another 50 days (7 weeks) before Christmas Day.

I don't need to have whole aisles in shops trying to tempt me with Christmas specific items to remember who I need to buy a gift for each year, and if I needed to scrap any decorations at the end of the season I tend to buy replacements on sale straight after & put them away with the other decorations.

But presumably shops do sell more Christmas merchandise if it's available from September, otherwise they wouldn't do it.

Or maybe the disappearance of Christmas merchandise after Christmas Eve is a chance to enjoy the 12 days of Christmas without any commercial pressure.

Yes totally. We all need something to cheer us up in those dark winters

It’s because employee numbers are so low that it’s most cost effective to put Christmas stuff out now and not have to work on that section much for 3 months.

What like buying endless tubs of chocolate, body spray gift sets and tinsel? I'm all for winter cheer, but we really don't need to find it in themed supermarket aisles.

I don't mind stuff being sold in the shops, as I understand that for many people they can only manage by buying things over a few months.

What I can't stand is the actual celebration of Christmas way before the festive season. I don't want to hear Christmas songs and see Christmas films until advent. And I most certainly do not enjoy seeing Christmas decorations up, especially because they're usually up early November then pulled down on Boxing Day, which is just fucking miserable.

It's commercial overload - Halloween, Nov 5th, Remembrance day and Christmas all at the same time. I agree it takes the value away as all the occasions are squashed together.

Thats called marketing 🤣

John Lewis are amounst the worse.

Sometime ago they put up all the decorations trees etc in our local one. And worse they started playing Christmas songs. FROM THE END OF AUGUST !

Sorry for the shouting but it was awful. Songs on a short loop so repeating every 30 mins of so. Drove me mad as a customer and as for the staff must have been torture. Local campaign got going - lots of letters / calls to the store. It may even have been mentioned in local press. The songs stopped.

Power to the People!

So glad to hear this. I’ll be in Spain from November to January.

You'll love it. It's much more low key. If you around for kings (5th January). That's lovely

Having worked in retail it’s all about the money, Christmas is such a massive thing for retailers and really gives them a boost to sales.

They start pushing it earlier so more people will start spending earlier and many of those people will inevitably end up spending more.

I get some people can’t afford it all on one payday but if they’re that fussed about Christmas presents they can still buy things early. They don’t need all the stores and high streets to be all Christmassy for that.

It can be hard to avoid depending on your lifestyle. Thankfully it doesn’t affect me too much since I tend to WFH when I’m in the UK and I avoid shopping unless it’s online so I am shielded from the bulk of it. I mostly notice a change in what’s on tv but strangely enough I don’t mind watching Christmassy movies whatever time of year.

People like to get their seasonal pictures perfect for the social media hits.

You might not agree, and I don't, you might think we are circling the drain of civilisation, and I could be persuaded, but it's a fact of modern life.

If you post a picture of your beautiful autumnal decorations and are one of the first you will get more hits, hence more money/exposure/build the brand. It works. Otherwise it wouldn't be so big. And by getting the big hitters to decorate their houses for autumn, halloween, advent, christmas, valentines, mothers day, easter, fathers day, probably summer perfect picnics, you feed the consumerism monster.

Or you can look at things from a different angle, a greater number of people, especially younger people, do not have as much disposable cash. Going out is expensive nowadays, live venues have closed so what is still open is busy. People spend a bit less on decorating their houses because they are in them a lot more than ever. Youngers take photos of their surroundings and look at photos of others because that is part of their entertainment. It might not be very healthy, or maybe it is, who knows, I am not a young adult in this current modern world.

Some people have difficult lives daily, they work hard, like many do, but get paid just enough to squeak by, they have to say no to treats for their children all the time or days out, or new shoes. So they do try to make Christmas different, better, a few days to enjoy.

You can swiftly walk past Christmas aisles, or avoid seasonal displays. But tutting and judging others doing things different is sort of the total opposite of the season of goodwill anyway. Or do people have goodwill ONLY at Christmas, goodwill is not available for any of the other days of the year.

Thanks, looking forward to it. I’ve just looked into Kings day - aw it looks great 😄

Our local garden centre had its Christmas opening on Saturday....Santa came, along with Mrs. Claus (?!), there were sweets, elves, Santa cut the red ribbon, everyone singing jingle bells. The place was absolutely rammed. Both Saturday and Sunday there was hardly a space in the car park nor the overflow parking, and customers were pushing trollies piled high with baubles and boxed crackers etc. Clearly the garden centre knows what it's doing as there are enough people wanting to buy all this stuff (glittery tat) so early.

Yes who buys all those specialised cards.

no one I know does

i still send cards though

I'm a Gen X with kids, elderly parents a full time job and I'm a single parent. No-one is lonely on Xmas or left behind or not considered. It doesn't have to be a hugely complicated stressful thing. I had nativities and concerts and parties to juggle with two kids and one of me. It's busy and they don't get to do everything, but it's not a bad thing for kids to know they can't always. We did Xmas trains and pantomimes and ice skating but never elf on the sodding shelf or Xmas eve boxes or matching pjs. Just because people have expectations does not mean you have to kill yourself meeting them.

Spot on.
Let's hope more people start rejecting it and realize they've been brainwashed for years.