Now, I’m not one to advocate telling corporations what to do in their day-to-day business (unless it’s illegal, unethical, or unhealthy), but there’s something that’s been bugging me for a couple weeks, and I know I’m not alone. Actually, it’s been bugging me for a lot longer, but the problem is getting worse. I’ll call it Holidayification, which I’ll define as going to the extremes to get an upcoming holiday in people’s minds. Generally, it covers most major holidays, but specifically, I’ll discuss Christmas.
I first noticed it several years ago, but this year has taken the cake. I think I first noticed Christmas displays going up a few weeks ago, maybe the second week of October. Now, I know corporations consider Christmas as a huge part of yearly profits, but is starting your marketing that early necessary? Do corporations really think getting the idea through our heads earlier and earlier going to make us spend more money for Christmas? My answer is…it’s probable. Their thinking is that by getting into people’s minds that Christmas is coming up that they’ll buy more. There may be other reasons for starting earlier, such as increasing population. By starting earlier, the increasing amount of people in the country will be able to get their Christmas decorations and presents.
However, I do see some problems with my previous ideas. I think that corporations are likely to get more money just from an increasing population. Seems simple to me; more people = more money. So the reason might seem to lean more to the burgeoning population. However, even with a larger population, it seems to me that people still don’t really seem to start buying for Christmas until Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. They’re busy worrying about Halloween and then Thanksgiving. So, there must be some other reason I’m not thinking of.
So, there must be a good reason for doing it, even if I do think the whole idea is a bit ridiculous. For example, this Sunday, my local Walgreens was playing Christmas music. I thought displays were bad, but now music? I mean, come on! If anything, they ought to be playing Halloween music. I don’t know. I just worry that we’ll soon be hearing Christmas music before the 4th of July. If it ever comes to that, I do expect a lot of Americans to put their foot down, given the importance of the 4th. Indeed, if it ever were to happen, I’d put forth a special version of Independence Week, shaming all the companies who are desecrating that holiday with their corporatization.
Dymersion Video update: My second time in front of the camera during a newscast went very well. As I mentioned on Monday, I’m going to use my appearance on the show’s editorial segment as this week’s episode, so expect that uploaded to my YouTube channel sometime tomorrow.
Well – some of us don’t live in the US and have different dates held as dear to us as Jul 4th is to US citizens. But mostly I agree with this post – with the exception of Christmas. I see Halloween as really nothing more than a fun get-candy and costume day, and a day that means Christmas is on its way back once again. So, I don’t mind intermingling of Christmas and Halloween at all. However – when Christmas has just gone, and they start putting out the Valentines’ stuff – argh, that does annoy me!
Just a couple of other quick notes – I also can’t stand chain letters, and those that use and twist religion around to get people passing it on also bugs the heck out of me. I think at least some of that chain letter junk has been originated by anti-Christians in the hopes of getting their haw-haws by fooling Christians into passing along this made up junk, and to my huge chagrin, the majority of Christians seem to fall for it, hook, line, and sinker!
About the cat killing video – well – animals don’t come “innocent” or “guilty” those are human traits. I would’ve used “hapless” to describe the cat. Anyway, that video was made by animal rights, anti-human extremists with a really hateful and warped sense of self-righteousness. It spawned a chain letter that attempted to villify the Toronto Film Festival, and made no mention of the motives of the clods that killed the cat. But I did a little research and found out.
I don’t know how early Christmas is emphasized where you live, but I think it’s getting worse here every year. It’s not so much I have a problem trying to get people thinking about Christmas. It’s that they barely get done thinking about one holiday when they’re on the next. And indeed with Halloween, they seem to be thinking along your lines. A minor one night thing, so it won’t hurt to pair Christmas up along with it. But yes, putting up Valentines right after Christmas is annoying, too.
Not sure what to think about the idea of anti-Christians putting up these kind of chain mails. Honestly could be anyone, who knows.
Also, I assume you speak of my “The Art of Killing” DV episode. I talked about a dog in that one, so not sure if we’re thinking about the same thing.
Thanks for commenting!