The Early Start of the Holiday Season: Are Retailers Hurrying Too Much?
Absolutely. And I can’t blame them. This is America, the Land of the Almighty Dollar. There's no denying it. But we can and I do ignore it.
As a former bridal shop owner, you understand supply and demand and how critical the holiday season is for retail. The shortages and shipping difficulties we are all experiencing are leaving some holiday goods in ports until they can be unloaded and transported by trucks to manufacturers' warehouses. Retailers are responding by encouraging people to shop early. One promotion is 'November is the New December.' This is not rushing; it is a sound response to shortages and wanting to keep customers happy.
No, we’ve had these comments every year, but I appreciate that they have to make the most they can out of the season to cover their huge overheads. I like the commercial Christmas—it’s a great time for children.
No, if you don’t have some sense of planning, the holiday season can break you. And with ships backed up in the ports, anyone who isn’t buying gifts now is an idiot. Because you may end up with nothing to give worthwhile. Intelligent people plan, and that's precisely why the holiday season is called 'the holiday season.'
No doubt about it. It has been getting earlier and earlier. This year, though, there is the added drive behind retailers trying to survive after the restrictions of the pandemic. In my youth, sixty years ago, there was the build-up to Christmas through 'advent.' Getting our artificial tree out, decorating it, and setting it up was the beginning of Christmas. At the butchers, where I had a spare-time job, we were starting to take orders for turkeys, capons, chickens, beef, and pork roasting joints ready for them to come into the shop about a week before the day. The last weekend before Christmas was when we worked all day Sunday to dress the poultry. Four of us spent the whole day dealing with up to three hundred turkeys that had been delivered, plucked but intact. Until then, it was business as usual. There were frozen chickens, but it was some time before frozen turkeys turned up. When they started coming, they could be stored in the huge walk-in freezers well before the holiday. We didn’t have the need for the last Sunday oven-dressing the birds as there were fewer fresh turkeys ordered, meaning there wasn’t that extra day's pay either.
At home, we would be making streamers and garlands for trimming up our homes. Christmas cards would be arriving through the post, then hung up on strings around the walls. We couldn’t do too much preparation because we didn’t have the refrigeration and shops didn’t have the festive ingredients displayed. My parents would go out on Christmas Eve to get our turkey, after the country cousins stopped rearing them up until then, they were delivered by one of the uncles who had a car. It was a busy evening of preparation.
Workers had perhaps Christmas Eve, Day, and Boxing Day holidays, then back to work. Shop workers were there till close of business on Christmas Eve. It was many years before we had the two days holiday for New Year's, so you didn't go getting too drunk on New Year's Eve if you were working the next day. It was just a small supper, then off to bed after hearing the church bells announce the new year. It was boiled ham hock and pea pudding with fresh baked bread for supper when I married into a Northumbrian family.
Nowadays, the Christmas and New Year celebration has become a vital annual commercial bonanza for traders, going on for months instead of just a busy week or so. The shorter one was less intrusive and probably more fun.
So, is it too early for retailers to start their holiday promotions? This year, the answer is a resounding yes. Over the years, the holiday season has indeed been getting earlier, but this year’s pressures on supply chains and retail strategies have brought the start date forward significantly. It's a survival tactic in a time of uncertainty and shortage, but it's important to balance this urgency with the need to ensure steady and sustainable customer satisfaction.