Christmas creep

Christmas celebrations in the United States were not large and extravagant during the 1800s. The holiday began to transform between 1880 and 1910. Before the 1880s, gifts were often hand-made; the purchase of manufactured goods as gifts increased with industrialization and the rise of a better-off and more urban middle class. Mass-produced ornaments also became more available and less expensive. In the early 1900s, Christmas shopping tended to occur in December, often during the last few days before Christmas, and even on Christmas day itself. There were some attempts to market Christmas in early autumn. An emporium in Kansas City, Missouri named Bullene, Moore, Emery & Company sparked a preholiday rush that "packed every square foot of the store" on November 16, 1888. Promotion for an "Early Christmas Event" in 1893 by a retailer in Salt Lake City, Utah retailer read: "This is no joke. We mean it. We will do it." and secretary of the National Consumers League, published an essay on "The Travesty of Christmas" in 1903, calling for shoppers to shop earlier in the month of December and reduce the "Christmas cruelties" associated with seasonal working conditions. Their motivation was not to encourage sales, but rather to ease the burden on factory workers and "the workers behind the counters and on the delivery wagons". By 1915 the campaign reported widespread support. World War II Further stimulus for early holiday gift buying came with what came to be called "Franksgiving" in 1939, 1940, and 1941 when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the celebration of Thanksgiving earlier by a week in order to help boost retail sales by prolonging the Christmas shopping season. These events undermined the tradition that Christmas merchandise not be put out before Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving consistently ranks among the top ten retail sales days of the year. The associated term Cyber Monday was introduced in 2005, after retailers noticed that the Monday after Thanksgiving was "one of the biggest online shopping days of the year". Black Friday and Cyber Monday have spread to other countries, including the United Kingdom, New Zealand and India. 21st century By the early 2000s, the hardware chain Lowe's had established a policy of setting out artificial trees and decorations by October 1. Retailers such as Walmart, J. C. Penney, and Target were also displaying Christmas merchandise in October, while Costco made Christmas merchandise available as early as September, reportedly to meet demand from small-business resellers. Christmas merchandise is increasingly appearing in retail spaces before the Halloween and Thanksgiving holidays. In 2006 the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, said that roughly 40 percent of consumers planned to start their holiday shopping before Halloween. A possible exception to Christmas creep is the sale of live Christmas trees. Live Christmas trees generally appear in stores in late November. Freshly cut live trees tend to last from four and six weeks. As a result, buying a live tree before Thanksgiving is not recommended. In 2002, 17% of the Christmas trees purchased were reportedly sold by big-box stores like Home Depot, Lowes and Wal-Mart. By 2007, this had risen to 25%. == Canada ==

In Canada, Halloween is less emphasized than in the United States, so some retailers may introduce Christmas merchandise in advance of Halloween. == United Kingdom and Ireland ==

The term Black Friday appeared in the 2010s in the UK Its increased usage can be traced to the internet being more widespread, as well as growing Americanization, as neither country celebrates Thanksgiving. 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. == Australia ==

Halloween is not a traditional holiday in Australia. However, the Australian Retailers Association reports that its popularity has grown: one in five Australians participate in Halloween, which is most popular among 35 to 59-year-olds, next with under 35s. Since Halloween has less of a societal and retail presence, Australian shops can make Christmas merchandise available earlier, sometimes as early as August. Australian department store Myer introduces Christmas in phases, stocking Christmas trim in mid-October, welcoming Santa in early November, and a displaying a fully-decorated store by mid-December. Retailers such as David Jones have extended Black Friday in hopes of capturing more of Australian's discretionary spending. Analysts in 2024 noted that Australians were buying earlier, possibly due to looking for bargains, more careful budget management, or the memory of previous-year's supply chain issues. ==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. The all-Christmas format, which began mostly as a regional phenomenon in Phoenix, Arizona in the 1990s, was launched in test markets in 2000 and rolled out nationwide in 2001. Such stations commonly shifted to an all-Christmas playlist after Thanksgiving; 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 (in light of the consequences of 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 usually begins its "Countdown to Christmas" programming event (a continuous marathon of original Christmas movies) on November 1. In 2010, ABC Family began to air some holiday-related programming in mid-November under the banner "Countdown to 25 Days of Christmas"; as a prelude to its main "25 Days of Christmas" event. The network, renamed Freeform, renamed the programming block "Kickoff to Christmas" in 2018, expanding it so that it encompasses the entire month of November (Freeform cannot move the block into October because its existing "31 Nights of Halloween" event, which had itself expanded from its original 13 days). Freeform dropped the Kickoff to Christmas in 2023 in favor of a "30 Nights of Disney" event. == Criticism ==

Criticism of Christmas creep largely concerns its potential dilution of the appeal of Christmas, due to the incessant and seasonally inappropriate presence of Christmas decorations and holiday theming long before December or even the start of winter, which can be perceived by many as an annoyance. Such critiques long predate the term "Christmas creep" itself; a 1947 letter by H. Earl Garzee to the La Crosse Tribune read, "We see these decorations a month and a half before the holiday arrives and when it does come, we're so sick and tired of the lights and trimmings, we pay no attention to them, and the whole atmosphere is dull at the time it should be cheerful." ==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). Randy Brooks, best known as the author of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer," recorded "It's Halloween (A Christmas Song)," which remarked upon the increasing trend of entering the Christmas season immediately after Halloween ends, facetiously forgetting what Thanksgiving is, lamenting the season is only eight weeks long, noting that Valentine's Day celebrations will begin on December 26, and musing that next year's Christmas celebrations might begin on Labor Day. In Jim Butcher's 2012 novel Cold Days, Santa Claus himself declares that he's drawing the line at Halloween. On October 7, 2015, radio station WURV in Richmond, Virginia satirized the phenomenon of Christmas creep by airing a twelve-hour stunt of "inappropriately early" Christmas music. In the final part of the movie Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, all characters meet in a hotel in heaven and find out that, in heaven, every day is Christmas. ==See also==