ALREADY?!

[fireheart]

According to a friend of mine, David Jones and Myers (upscale department stores in Australia-or at least "upscale" by my standards...) have now started not only doing their decorations, but also putting up their "Christmas Stores"

[Carsomyr]

Christmas is the one time we actually store things away - halloween and what have you will stick around regardless if it's selling or not (and usually that'd be.. not). There's always something that'll be missed, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if someone's looked at our never-went-back-to-storage items and thought we were getting things back in already.

Although calendars/diaries are in unusually early this year. So early, in fact, that almost every time, someone will take one look at them and ask, "Do you have any 2012 calendars?"

[wolfie]

I wouldn't mind seeing Halloween stuff now.. It's seeing the Christmas stuff out at the regular stores and no Halloween or Thanksgiving stuff that irks me. Halloween is my favorite holiday and it's getting harder to find a decent kit up for it!

You'd LOVE "Canuckistan Rubber Donut", then. About a week ago, I was there, and they not only had Halloween stuff out, but it was already on clearance.

[PepperElf]

That one doesn't bother me at all. In many areas, the money collected locally is all they have to fund local family food baskets for Christmas, to buy gifts for local children who won't have a Christmas, etc. So the more they can collect, the more families will have a bit of Christmas they might not otherwise have had. Also, they're working down to the wire trying to use the funds to buy what's needed for the gifts & baskets - money coming in a bit earlier allows them to get started on buying those things, and the better deals they can often get, as well. It does take a certain amount of time to convert donations from kettles into actual food baskets for families & gifts for kids, so I don't begrudge them getting an early start.

Same here. It doesn't bother me at all, because it's for charity. And the people they assist have needs all year round, not just as Christmas when we're feeling more giving.