1. Economic motivation

2. United States

3. Broadcasting

4. Satire

5. See also

6. References

7. Further reading

Economic motivation

The phenomenon is associated with a desire of merchants to take advantage of particularly heavy Christmas-related shopping well before Black Friday in the United States and before Halloween in Canada. The term ‘Black Friday’ was not used until recently in the UK and Ireland. The increased usage can be traced to the internet being more widespread, as well as growing Americanization, as neither country celebrates Thanksgiving. Previously, retailers referred to Christmas as the "golden quarter", that is, the three months of October through December is the quarter of the year in which the retail industry hopes to make the most profit.^[3] The lack of Thanksgiving as a ‘barrier’ between holidays has caused several retailers to put up Christmas sales earlier in the year. For instance, Irish retailer Brown Thomas opens its Christmas store in mid-August.

This phenomenon can apply for other holidays as well, notably Valentine's Day, Easter and Mother's Day. The motivation for holiday creep is for retailers to lengthen their selling interval for seasonal merchandise in order to maximize profit and to give early-bird shoppers a head start on that holiday. However, it is not clear that this practice has been consistently beneficial for retailers.^[4]

Seasonal creep is not limited to the northern hemisphere winter holiday season and other popular holidays and observances, but is also becoming more common for merchandise associated with a general season of the year. Advertising for winter-, spring-, summer-, and fall-related goods generally now begins midway through the previous season. For example, many supermarkets in the United Kingdom begin selling Easter eggs even before Christmas, and in the US, stores begin selling 4th of July products before Easter, and the next major holiday is marketed as soon as or before the previous has ended. Such a phenomenon is known under the more general name of holiday creep.

In Australia, shops have been known to have their Christmas merchandise available as early as late September, mainly because older Australians generally don't celebrate Halloween compared to younger Australians, though by the 2010s, Halloween merchandise has cropped up alongside Christmas merchandise during the same periods. The department store, David Jones Limited even begins selling Christmas merchandise at the start of September.{{cn|date=November 2016}}

United States

In United States retail, the phenomenon was pioneered by stores like Sam's Club,{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} which introduced early Christmas sales to support resellers. The hardware chain Lowe's followed in 2000 with a policy of setting out Christmas trees and decorations by October 1, mainly because the Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays do not provide enough merchandise or sales to fill retail space between the end of the summer season and the Christmas season.{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} In 2002–2003, Christmas creep accelerated markedly with retailers such as Walmart, J. C. Penney, and Target beginning their Christmas sales in October.^[5] In 2006 the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, said that 40 percent of consumers planned to start their holiday shopping before Halloween. Since the 2010s, there has been a growing trend for retailers to start selling holiday merchandise in mid- to late-September, with retailers such as Walmart, Sam's Club, Kmart, Costco, J.C. Penney, Sears, and Lowe's now beginning their Christmas sales earlier than October 1.^[6]

Broadcasting

Christmas creep has also been cited as a phenomenon in radio broadcasting. Prior to the early 21st century, radio stations commonly began adding some Christmas songs to their regular playlists in early December and then playing an all-Christmas playlist on December 24 and 25.{{citation needed|date=November 2011}} In 2000^[7][8] some stations began playing an exclusively Christmas format for the entire month of December, a practice that became more widespread in 2001. In subsequent years, such stations have commonly shifted to an all-Christmas playlist after Thanksgiving, or even several weeks earlier.^[9] A handful of American radio stations^[10] have, since 2006, earned a reputation for regularly switching to Christmas music on November 1, the day after Halloween; as of 2011, this has not become the norm for most of North America (mid-November is the typical start time for Christmas music on most radio stations in the United States and Canada{{citation needed|date=November 2011}}), and it is still extremely rare to hear stations (other than those pulling a stunt between changing formats) change to Christmas music in October.

Some of the channels on the cable radio service Music Choice begin playing Christmas music continually from the end of Halloween up until the first week of January (with the Internet age, the network maintains an exclusive Christmas music channel through some providers and their TV Everywhere platform year-round). Likewise, the U.S. cable channel Hallmark Channel begins airing continuous Christmas movies through the whole months of November and December and since 2018, Freeform airs Christmas movies from November 1 to December 25.

Although not often broadcast in the summer, the animated special Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July is based on the concept and set in July.{{Citation needed|reason="Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July" is arguably based more on the concept of Christmas in July than on Christmas creep. Though Christmas in July could possibly be considered an example of Christmas creep, there is no source given for the claim that the special is based on the latter.|date=November 2018}}

Satire

This market trend is satirized in the 1974 animated special It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, when the characters go shopping at a department store and discover that it has its Christmas displays up in the middle of April, including a sign forewarning that there were only a mere 246 days left until Christmas. Additionally, in 1973's A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Sally complains that she was looking for a turkey tree for Thanksgiving but had only found Christmas supplies.

Several songs satirize the phenomenon, including Loudon Wainwright III's "Suddenly It's Christmas" (from his 1993 live album Career Moves), Straight No Chaser's "The Christmas Can-Can" (from their 2009 album Christmas Cheers), Paul and Storm's "The Way-Too-Early Christmas Song" (from their 2010 album Do You Like Star Wars?). Christian singer/songwriter Brandon Heath voiced his feelings on Christmas creep in the song "The Day After Thanksgiving" (from his 2013 album Christmas Is Here).

In Jim Butcher's 2012 novel Cold Days, Santa Claus himself declares that he's drawing the line at Halloween.

See also

• Criticism of Thanksgiving
• Mission creep
• Season creep

References

Further reading

• {{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/19/AR2008111903883.html |last=Kelly |first=John |work=Washington Post |date=November 20, 2008 |accessdate=December 1, 2008 |title=It's Not the Eggnog Talking: Christmas Is Starting Earlier |page=B03 }}
• {{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/23/AR2008112302040.html |last=Kelly |first=John |work=Washington Post |date=November 24, 2008 |accessdate=December 1, 2008 |title=Earlier Christmas Displays Just a Friendly Reminder |page=B03 }}

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