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20051112 Saturday November 12, 2005

Whatever happened to Thanksgiving?

My caffeine fix this morning was accompanied by plenty of red and white. No, not wine but Christmas decorations. I remember when the Christmas season in the United States began *after* Thanksgiving (per wikipedia: "Since at least the 1930s, the Christmas shopping season in the U.S. traditionally begins when Thanksgiving ends.")

Note to retailers, don't forget our day of gratitude. Putting out Christmas decorations doesn't make it so.

(2005-11-12 19:01:02.0) Permalink Comments [11]

Trackback URL: http://blogs.sun.com/jclingan/entry/whatever_happened_to_thanksgiving
Comments:

I saw some Halloween pumpkins in front of a store in Japantown, SF. last week. We just put our Thanksgiving decorations out which consists of two matching cornucopias of fake flowers... :-)

Posted by Jeremy on November 12, 2005 at 09:13 PM PST #

I noticed the same thing at my favorite coffee place this morning--I wondered if I had fallen asleep and lost a month. I'm a marketer by training, but I do think this is going a bit overboard.

Posted by karen on November 13, 2005 at 04:19 PM PST #

The industrie is pushing the christmas thing earlier and earlier. In Germany, we dont have Thanksgiving and the christmas decoration is out since October!! I dont like it. Christmas is something special and they take the flaire out of it by putting the decorations out months bevore the event.

Posted by Mone on November 13, 2005 at 11:14 PM PST #

Thanks for the replies, everyone. Looks like I'm not alone! Won't be long before we'll be watching 4th of July fireworks (Independence Day in the US) while humming "Jingle Bells" :)

Posted by John Clingan on November 13, 2005 at 11:55 PM PST #

I agree to Mone, but we do have some kind of "Thanksgiving", it's called "Erntedankfest" and is celebrating the autumn harvest as well (it's not as big as Thanksgiving and is celebrated mainly in churches).

Posted by littleandy on November 14, 2005 at 02:09 AM PST #

I really can't understand the guys that have shops.
Some years ago I was on the street, I saw the decorations and I would think to myself "hey, it's Christmas, time to shop for gifts" and I would start shopping.
Today I think the same thing but, I follow that thought with "Christmas? It's not even December" and, all the shopping get's postponed until the last days before Christmas.
IMO, they are only hurting themlelfs, ...

Posted by Jaime Cardoso on November 14, 2005 at 02:35 AM PST #

My brother just emailed me saying that he's sending out X-mas gifts by the end of the week. This has got to be a record for my kids to get X-mas presents before Thanksgiving.

Posted by Jeremy on November 14, 2005 at 05:23 PM PST #

The first Xmas catalog I got this year was somewhere in July and so I was prepared for that. One day we can keep the Xmas decoration out the entire year ;-) which will for sure save a ton of money or whould having no decoration do the trick, too? -Andy

Posted by Andreas Schaefer on November 15, 2005 at 03:59 PM PST #

asd

Posted by asd on November 18, 2005 at 10:53 AM PST #

My maiden name is Clingan A great name, still love it and it goes well with karen.

Posted by Karen (maiden name Clingan) on January 02, 2006 at 04:59 PM PST #

[Trackback] Our Halloween pumpkins look as moldy and mad as I do lately. Halloween came and went a mere two weeks ago, and here we are already deeply entrenched in the Christmas season. The mall halls are fully decked, as is

Posted by Wise Ideas on November 13, 2007 at 06:34 AM PST #

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