It’s Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas
By Randall | October 2nd, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | 6 comments 496 views | 6 Comments » |
Tne next time you wander into one of the big-box stores like Target or Wal-Mart, don’t be surprised if you encounter Santa Claus and his elves poking their faces out from around Halloween candy and scarecrows. Because of the down economy, high unemployment rates, and other indicators that the economy just plain sucks, large merchandisers are expecting a very disappointing Christmas season. Since the Christmas sales rush provides a SIGNIFICANT percentage of sales, looking forward to down sales and lackluster performance has management reaching for any way to increase sales and revenue.
If You Can’t Get People to Come to Christmas, Bring the Christmas to Them
One idea that has caught on is extending the Christmas sales period. Not just a few weeks, but a couple of months! I’ve jokingly said that in a few years we’re going to have a true Christmas in July, but this is closer to the truth than I though. By extending the buying season, management is hoping to encourage people to still spend as much as they would in a normal Christmas season, but spreading it over a longer period. That way, even with a tightened family budget, it’s more likely that a family can still provide all the presents (and make all thoses sales), and justify the financial pain by stretching out the purchases over time.
It’s a pretty smart attempt, but in my opinion, it still pushes the limits of good taste. I don’t want to see Santa and Rudolph before Thanksgiving! I’m expecting costumed children looking for candy, followed by pilgrims and tasty turkey drumsticks before I see the big red guy. It’s kind of unsettling.
A Celebration of Consumerism
What was originally a Christian celebration, Christmas has been co-opted by business as a great opportunity to indoctrinate everyone into the idea of buying presents (preferably expensive ones). Christmas has been transformed from a time of celebration and peace on earth, into a frenzied shopping spree to get the new ‘hot toy’ of the season. It’s even invaded other countries! Japan, a historically pre-dominantly non-christian population now celebrates Christmas (or a better description, the Christmas Shopping Season). People that have no belief in Christianity are ‘influenced’ to go out and buy presents in celebration.
Equal Time for the Minority Parties
As Christmas seems to get an inordinate amount of attention and the lion’s share of disposable income from society, other holidays are banding together to get a bigger piece of the pie. Consequently, some changes are to be implemented in the coming year.
St. Valentine’s Day – As a runner-up to Christmas in the must-spend-for-presents department, Valentines day is following Christmas and extending the sales season as well. Boyfriends/husbands will be expected to buy flowers, chocolate and expensive jewelry for their beloved starting Jan 2nd (Valentine’s Day wanted Jan 1st, but was talked out of it by New Years Day, citing the high rate of hangovers to be expected on that day).
Halloween – In retaliation to a perceived pre-emptive strike by Christmas, Halloween is extending it’s season BACK two months. This means that children will be able to go trick or treating on Nov 30th, and Dec 30th as well. (Probably not a well considered reprisal, as it might get cold in Dec, but some response was warranted by the threatened holiday)
Thanksgiving – As this holiday generally ends up falling asleep after the celebration, the only response here was to suggest new food items. To that end the Thanksgiving Rumproast is being given a go next year, followed by the Thanksgiving Filet Mignon the following year (depending on Rumproast adoption).
St. Patrick’s Day – Going to be serving more beer (if that’s even possible).
Ramadan, Rosh Hashanan, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa – As the Non-Christian holidays, with appropriately less spending, they are pooling their resources and combining into a SuperHoliday to be called “NotChristmas“. This ambitious project proposes to extend their influence over every day of the year except December 25th. Interesting marketing ploy, we’ll have to see about success though.
April Fool’s Day – This holiday has announced that it is simply changing it’s day of celebration to April 1st (think about it a second).
So, what are you wating for?!?? Get out there and start stocking up for Christmas!
I totally agree with you. It disgusts me that every year Christmas decorations are put out in stores earlier and earlier. Why don’t they just dedicate an aisle to Christmas all year? Don’t get me wrong, I do like Christmas, but I like Thanksgiving and Halloween too, and those are being ignored to make room for Christmas.
It won’t work on me. We don’t do much to celebrate “consumer Christmas” anyway (in terms of buying stuff), so trying to get me to buy more by buying earlier…nope. Like you, I’ll just end up annoyed with the stores that do this and probably try to avoid them. :-/
How can you leave out the 4th of July, that is still my favorite holiday. I love fire….works too much. Christmas has gotten to the point that gifts really are not that important, it is just a time for travel, maybe we should pick a different week and save alot of money.
btw, I don’t get the inspirational poster… sticks and carrots? You mind explaining that one a bit?
@Philip, eh, 5 minutes ’till I had to go to work, and no Christmasy-themed demotivators in sight.
I’ll probably get around to changing it soon.
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This is going to be such a tight Christmas for my family we made one gift for each child out of scraps we had here in our home, I sew hubby makes things out of wood. Then we gathered up all the things that are special to them (our children are older and don’t live with us but they are still young late teens 19 and early 20 and 21 ) all the things from their childhood that they love and we have hung on to for them and we placed all of it in a box and sent it to them for their Christmas holiday, we can’t afford to travel to them or help them buy plane tickets to come see us , they will all be going to friends who have invited them for the holidays. This is the best that we could do and we do hope that they understand and feel blessed to be able to have a roof over their heads in these difficult times. Merry Christmas everyone!! We hope that other’s remain blessed enough to have a roof over their heads during the holiday season. (Living out of a car sucks ! and we are both veteran enough to realize that !) Amazing how well your kid will do in college when they know how tough times can get if you can’t earn that top paycheck. Happy Holidays to all!