You're not just imagining it. Christmas season now starts before Halloween. At least Christmas decorations were popping up in stores in mid-October.
Not long ago, I found myself walking through a winter wonderland of sparkling artificial Christmas trees for sale at Wal-Mart as nearby shelves were still fully stocked with Halloween costumes and industrial-size bags of candy corn. The first Christmas glitter at my local Saks Fifth Avenue started appearing Oct. 17.
So what about this retail scheme to encourage us to start holiday shopping more than a month before the traditional start date: the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday? Is this a good thing? To find out, I took to the street to ask the target audience — shoppers — what they thought.
Click here to see the gallery.
