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?

It only starts as early as you let it. As children we always had our decorations up 2 weeks before Christmas and never before. I've continued with this in my household now, so it's not getting any earlier for me.

A lot of shops that rely on discretionary spend, such as mine, will take as much in the last three months of the year as in the previous 9. - so, losses for 9 months hoping to make them up in the final three.

Jan and Feb - hardly worth opening at all.

Relentless bad news from the government is not helping.

Autumn is a wonderful season, and especially in our temperate climate. Trees making glorious displays of autumn colour, misty mornings and cosy evenings.
I feel saddened that Autumn gets squeezed out between people who don’t want summer to end and people who precipitately invoke Christmas.
Bring Back Autumn!
I have plenty of Christmas joy, but if I have to stretch it over several months it loses its special essence. Christmas is lovely when it’s a sparkling jewel in the darkness of winter, not a relentless months-long onslaught of consumerism.

I do order Christmas food from M&S, if I left it to my preferred date stuff would sell out. This thread has reminded me ai need to place the order.

Instead of spending the money from August to December pay days, why don’t they have a savings account that they pay into for the year?

I went through JL yesterday and averted my eyes at all the sparkly stuff. Then got caught by a lovely lady on the Creed counter in the beauty section. Tried a couple of amazing perfumes. She lost me at £160 for 30mls.
😲

I don't bother with it, nor with all the other commercialised days such as Halloween, mothers/fathers day etc

We have our Christmas traditions and keep them, and have a lovely time. For us it is about family and spending time together, not how much money we spend or making everything look good on Instagram.

Just as I love getting a hug and a 'happy mother's day' from DD. I don't need any cheap generic tat

Money, simple as that. People make money out of it. That’s why we have Father’s Day and Mother’s Day and Halloween and so on…people promote them so they can sell you cards and plastic crap.

With everyone now penny pinching and slighter more willing to spend for Christmas, I don’t blame retailers for trying to make the most of the ever-important Q4 season.

No I don’t particularly like it all starting as early as it does, but you can just ignore it.

November is Autumn though.

I agree totally.

However, we are the customer and if we ignore and don't buy, the retailers will stop.

They won't want to take up floor space for no sales. They will not want to be left with out of date food.

According to card shops, between Sept and Dec, you are not allowed to:
. Be born/celebrate birthdays - yet this quarter has the most birthdays.
. Retire
. Die
. Move house
. Get a new job
. Get engaged/married/celebrate anniversaries
. Be ill
. Pass driving test

I remember a few years ago, I needed to buy a with sympathy card for a friend's DM who was a second mum to me. The only cards available were those with those long vomit inducing verses, which her DM detested. Then I thought of buying a blank card with white flowers or suitable images for a with sympathy card. Nothing. I asked do you have any more WS cards. They couldn't help me. Went to a charity shop which still sold blank cards.

I got sucked into the mad commercialisation of it a couple of times when my DC were young. All it did was make me incredibly anxious and I ended up buying way too much stuff.

So since then I've refused to have anything to do with Christmas until 1 December. Work colleagues call me The Grinch, but I don't care - they seem much more stressed than me.

It doesn't bother me at all but I don't buy into the consumerism. I do love Christmas though.

Really annoys me. I like the build up and if it all starts to early it takes the shine off it. Apart from buying presents I don’t do anything Christmassy until December

Just have some self control
I like the fact stuff is in the shops now ,I have a lot of people to buy for
I buy something each time I go shopping,helps me budget by spreading the cost

I thought more people are cutting back on buying Christmas presents. My family haven't bought presents for about 15 years now. Don't miss it. We do birthdays which is more personal.

I remember at my last job, a colleague asked me what to buy for her sister's fiancé's step father. I said to her, you are not related and the only person in your family that should buy something for him is your sister - probably a joint present from her and his DSS. She paused and said, yeah you are right.

People should not get skint on buying presents that people don't need, want or not related in anyway.

Some of the toiletry giftsets are more expensive than buying the products individually.

Some gifts like toiletries, gift cards and those gift sets with one hot chocolate sachet in them are pointless.

Love the Christmas decs (tasteful, traditional), carols, food.

Don't like the in the face from Sept, tacky Christmas decs, Christmas bedding and the tired 40 Christmas songs that are played on a loop in most shops. I say tired as they are exactly the same songs which were playing when I went to my Brownies' Xmas party 37 years ago. Bar the song by a disgraced glam rock singer has been replaced by Destiny's Child Christmas Alphabet.

@lampshadezThat is true but neither do they ‘do’ Christmas - no music, no point of sale displays, etc. so the experience there is not what we are discussing on this thread.

The retail & hospitality industries are very dependent on Christmas to make money. For many retailers, full price sales in November & December are what makes the difference between profit & loss for the year. For supermarkets, selling vast quantities of premium priced food & drink at Christmas has a huge impact on their margins in what is otherwise cut-throat competitive market. For many hospitality businesses, Christmas trade is what sees them through the first quarter of the new year. That’s why they all push Christmas so hard & so early.

It helps me spread the cost and mental load

I’m with you OP

leave it till late October

I'm in my late 60's and I can distinctly remember Christmas stuff appearing in the shops in October during the 1970's. In fact the old joke of Easter eggs being displayed on Boxing Day was said as much then as it is now. There was almost as much tat for sale then too. Although Christmas Eve boxes and Elves on Shelves didn't exist in the UK. Nobody had the time or inclination for that sort of extra work and expense. Presents for adults generally weren't so extravagant either (unless you were truly wealthy). You'd probably buy your Mum/MIL some new slippers and a gift box of toiletries and your Dad a nice fountain pen and maybe some tobacco. Your brother might get a beer tankard with his name engraved on it. Children would have one main present such as Action Man, Sindy Doll, Lego or roller skates along with a board game (which they'd have to share) and a Christmas annual of some kind. They'd also have a stocking/pillow case filled with cheap little things like colouring books or puzzles. You'd usually only buy for immediate family. You wouldn't buy gifts for colleagues or neighbours under normal circumstances but you sent or handed everyone a Christmas card. Some people still only had 2 weeks annual leave so Christmas was literally Christmas Day and Boxing Day, so the panic to buy food wasn't anywhere near as intense. Turkey dinner on Christmas Day with turkey sandwiches and Christmas cake in the evening. Home cooked ham with pickles and mash on Boxing Day.

It's the same in Ireland, go into supermarkets and the Halloween stuff is right next to the Christmas stuff, I do honestly prefer Christmas and despise Halloween. I like that I can pick up some things each week, would hate to have to buy everything all at once.

It's bo kers and no I don't like it. We've had neither Halloween (which is also bonkers) nor Guy Fawke's night yet.

But I will be ordering a new Christmas tree from JL today. 7' pre lit one becauase I wanted one last year and they had sold out of the really nice ones by mid November last year - got to because I chucked out the ten year old one after last Christmas

I worked in a supermarket a decade ago and people moaned about it starting in September then. The "earlier every year" is nonsense.