Whatever happened to the Christmas season?

[fireman17]

Do you remember growing up and right after Halloween getting ready for Thanksgiving? Your Mom would be shopping for the biggest turkey she could find and you also knew that right after Thansgiving the best time of the year started, Christmas season!!!! Wondering what Santa would bring you, tearing up the house looking for presents you knew Mom and Dad had bought. Waiting on Christmas Eve and not sleeping cause you knew you heard Santa downstairs...
Well say goodbye to that our kids will never know those feelings of excitement seeing that right after Halloween BOOM, it's Christmas season get out now and shop, shop, shop. Black Friday prices this Saturday, Christmas music 24/7 on some radio stations.
I don't get it do the retail stores really need the money that bad and with our economy being like it is do they expect them to come in droves with money in hand? Even my 11 year old said the other day, Dad, it's too early for it to be Christmas season and I couldn't agree more with him.
I wish for my childrens sake we could go back to those days of waiting until after Thanksgiving and have the true meaning of Christmas come back to us all celebrating the birth of Jesus, celebrating the love for our families and gift giving from the heart.
Not having it start after Halloween because of the almighty dollar but I guess it'll never be like that again.
Just my two cents.. Merry Christmas.

 

[Nancyg56]

I don't know. In my home Christmas does not start until the day after Thanksgiving. That is how it was when I was growing up, we all headed into Hartford for our Big day of shopping, lunch out and then meeting Santa. I am 53 and those days are not really that far gone.

I know that the stores may have their merchandise out but we still decorate for Halloween, then Fall and our Thanksgiving and not until then does our Season begin.

I have found that we can determine how fast our families move and how much time we dedicate to each Holiday. I refuse to rush through one in order to get to the next.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Growing up we always had our Christmas decorations up for Thanksgiving. I do the same thing.

That is my memory and I love it that way.

 

[golfgal]

Who is having Black Friday prices this Saturday????

 

[HeyIt'sMe]

I was in Michaels with my DD the week of Halloween and they already had the Halloween items marked way down and pushed in a corner. And they had all the Christmas stuff out. Geez. I'm expecting to see Valentine's Day stuff out before Christmas!

Everyone says 'life/time goes by so fast'. Well yeah, when you are constantly thinking 2-3 months ahead and not living in the present and enjoying the moment!

And I have to admit I don't like that all the Christmas specials (Rudolph, Frosty, Year Without A Santa Claus) are on DVD and can be watched at anytime. I remember when I was a child I looked SO forward to watching those shows and you had ONE chance to see them each year - if you missed them you had to wait until next Christmas. It made them more special. Yes, I do have them all on DVD for my DD.....but I don't like it!

Oh, and we put our Christmas tree up the weekend after Thanksgiving - always did, always will!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Who is having Black Friday prices this Saturday????

Everybody. They had doorbusters last weekend as well. I just got an email for Sears.

 

[Angelhalo]

Just because the stores put out their Christmas items doesn't mean anyone has to start celebrating Christmas before they want too. Some don't start until after Thanksgiving. My mom and I start around Nov 11th because that is usually when we head to the Southern Christmas Show so that kind of kicks off the season for us. I think the rush for Christmas says more about the current mood of people and the country than the economy. So many of us live our lives paycheck to paycheck. We get up and trudge through the day at jobs we don't love and we come home to busy families. We're tired and we as American's don't get nearly enough vacation time compared to European countries. When you're waiting for a big vacation, say going to WDW or on a cruise, whatever the case may be, we tend to want to rush it, to look forward to it. It gives us something happy to think about for a change. It puts us in a good mood.

I think thats what Christmas does for a lot of people. It gives them something to celebrate and be cheery about. The decorations make our homes fun and festive, and relieve some of the drearyness of day to day life. But, just because it does that for some people doesn't mean it has to do it for you. If you don't want to celebrate yet, then don't. Don't put up your decorations yet. Don't go shopping yet. No one is forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to do. I'll never understand people who are upset that Christmas stuff goes out into the stores after Halloween. Who cares? If you don't want to buy it yet, then don't.

 

[happygirl]

It seems like stores start Christmas promtions earlier and earlier.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

The Christmas season starts the day after Halloween now. I am amazed at all the Christmas lights that are already up and on. Thanksgiving just happens to fall in between Halloween and Christmas.

Growing up, I remember stores didn't even have their Christmas stock out until after Thanksgiving. I remember, because I couldn't wait for Thanksgiving to be over, so we could start seeing Christmas stuff. Now, Halloween is the magic day. It's like little elves come out and tear down the halloween displays and put up the Christmas displays all in one night. The Christmas music is already playing in the malls and in dept, stores. Santa arrives at the mall tomorrow.

 

[antmaril]

I was in Nordstrom yesterday. There is a sign at the entrance that says "We are waiting until November 27th to decorate for Christmas. We are celebrating one holiday at a time." I thought it was refreshing.

 

[mumom95]

I was in Michaels with my DD the week of Halloween and they already had the Halloween items marked way down and pushed in a corner. And they had all the Christmas stuff out. Geez. I'm expecting to see Valentine's Day stuff out before Christmas!

Everyone says 'life/time goes by so fast'. Well yeah, when you are constantly thinking 2-3 months ahead and not living in the present and enjoying the moment!

And I have to admit I don't like that all the Christmas specials (Rudolph, Frosty, Year Without A Santa Claus) are on DVD and can be watched at anytime. I remember when I was a child I looked SO forward to watching those shows and you had ONE chance to see them each year - if you missed them you had to wait until next Christmas. It made them more special. Yes, I do have them all on DVD for my DD.....but I don't like it!

I can understand a store like Michaels moving onto the next holiday earlier than the others because crafts take time to make. If they waited until after Thanksgiving to put out the Christmas stuff, many people wouldn't have time to finish their Christmas crafts/projects before the holiday.

But I do agree with the Christmas specials/DVD thing. Waiting to watch all those shows before Christmas, and knowing you only had that one chance a year, did make it so much more special. Now that my kids have the DVDs and can watch it anytime they want, as many times as they want, it just isn't the same.

I agree with the person that said you choose to move through the holidays at a certain pace. Christmas doesn't start for me until the Thanksgiving meal is cleaned up. That's when the Christmas CD gets turned on and the decorations all get pulled out and I prepare for Black Friday shopping.

I guess it is like most everything in life, it's what you choose to make it.

 

[Shutterbug]

Soon Christmas decorations will be up right after Labor Day.

I was out last night, I saw at least 6 homes in the neighborhood that had their Christmas lights on already.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

I was out last night, I saw at least 6 homes in the neighborhood that had their Christmas lights on already.

This is what I don't get. My Dh points out January's electric bill every year, to show much much the outside Christmas lights are costing us. It is one month out of the year we pay a little more money. There is no way he would be putting the Christmas lights on in November!! Not two months of a higher electric bill!

 

[Cheshire Figment]

In 1956 Frederik Pohl, a science fiction author, wrote a story called "Happy Birthday Dear Jesus" which has been anthologized several times. You are shown the commercialism and how the furor of the Christmas Season is rising to a peak, and then at the end you discover that this is all taking place in September. But then of course television, computers and rockets used to be science fiction also.

 

[MIGrandma]

I completely agree with you.

I don't like seeing Thanksgiving overlooked either. The stores put out the Christmas merchandise way too early. The Christmas music starts way too early. I don't like it, and I too would like to see it go back to the way it used to be. But I won't hold my breath. Unfortunately I doubt it will ever happen.

 

[Disney1fan2002]

In 1956 Frederik Pohl, a science fiction author, wrote a story called "Happy Birthday Dear Jesus" which has been anthologized several times. You are shown the commercialism and how the furor of the Christmas Season is rising to a peak, and then at the end you discover that this is all taking place in September. But then of course television, computers and rockets used to be science fiction also.

Good point. Maybe one day, Christmas in July will be all too real, and not just a gimmick.

 

[golfgal]

I can understand some of the major stores getting decorations up early-to a point. I know stores like Macy's have teams that come in from corporate headquarters to decorate the trees and departments so a lot of that gets done early. Macy's at the Mall of America had their Christmas department up and done before Halloween but they had it partitioned off until a couple weeks ago.

The biggest issue is that Halloween and Christmas are retail oriented seasons, Thanksgiving is not. Most people do not go all out to decorate their home for Thanksgiving, they are not buying gifts for Thanksgiving, etc. Then factor in all the people that want to be DONE shopping for Christmas before Thanksgiving (or earlier) and I can see why stores put things out around Halloween. How many people here are done Christmas shopping already????

I usually wait until after Thanksgiving to shop, mainly because the kids don't know what they want until then and I LIKE shopping in the Christmas rush. This year I have a few things bought already-which is very unusual but I actually have a list from the kids this year .

 

[luvmy3]

I shop year round for Christmas because I want the best deal I can get for my money, and sometimes that means shopping in August. However I do not start to celebrate the Holiday Season until Thanksgiving. We get to see friends and family that weekend that we will not see for another 6 months so we start our celebrating then. Our tree will go up at the beginning of Decemeber but the otehr decorations will have been out since Thanksgiving.

 

[puffkin]

I work PT in a retail store. It takes the store a good 3-4 weeks to get stocked and fully operational for the Christmas rush. So yes, we start in mid-October with the full changeover occurring right after Halloween. Unfortunately, there just isn't much "money" to be had for Thanksgiving merchandise. I work in a home goods store, so a lot of the cooking and entertaining pieces serve both holidays anyway so we just jump ahead to Christmas. We only have so many employees, so we need to get the store set when it is a bit less busy in October. Come November, we don't have time for all that background work (decorating, changing out displays, receiving merchandise, stocking) because we shift our attention to customer service. Also, most vendors have ordering deadlines, especially for seasonal merchandise. When it comes in, it has to go somewhere and most retail stores do not have large stockrooms or warehouse facilities so out it goes on the floor.

I also believe though you take the holidays at your pace. I hung my lights out last weekend because it was unusually warm here and I had time. Lots of my neighbors did as well. Not a single house is lit yet. Just because they are out doesn't mean I have to turn them on We will do the big lighting on Black Friday. I also am 75% done with my Christmas shopping and hope to finish up the rest in teh next week. We are going to WDW in December and I want to be done early so we can fully enjoy the holiday season in WDW and when we get back.

 

[Disney Doll]

I was in Nordstrom yesterday. There is a sign at the entrance that says "We are waiting until November 27th to decorate for Christmas. We are celebrating one holiday at a time." I thought it was refreshing.

I agree. I was just there the other day and saw the same sign.

I start decorating for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving.

I'm a "one holiday at a time" girl.