In my area, several stores already got the Halloween Candy out and all set up for this annual event that occurred on October 31st. When, the first week of October -- couple of stores slowly and gracefully starts getting the Thanksgiving Stuff out and all the sudden you are bombarded with Halloween and Thanksgiving Stuff.

When, Halloween is over ... they go ahead a make a huge markdown of Halloween Candy as much as 50% off and then they have this sale going on the first two weeks of November. Then, they take all of it down and any candy leftover they donate it to the food banks so kids can have an unexpected treats in November. I worked at a food bank once and that stuff go out very fast and gone in a day or two.

Then, Christmas and Thanksgiving stuff go on the rest of the month of November and then Thanksgiving is gone and everything associated with it is marked down 50% and people are like mad dogs trying to buy this stuff for next year and this cycle continues on.

Christmas Decorations and Stuff go on full blast the day after Christmas and one thing return on an annual basis is EGGNOG and that goes out the door as fast as they stock it. My family buys it all the time and I buy a carton every 4-5 days and have a glass of it in the morning.



This stuff is made available for 2-3 months - mid November to mid January and they mark it down at 50% sometimes in January and I try to buy at least 2 cartons before it's gone.

It's goes on every year and this is a vicious cycle that we all endure on an annual basis.

It's murder on our diets -- Candy, Thanksgiving Feast, Parties, Dinners, and Eggnog!

I rest my case.

I go out the day after Halloween and buy every bag of Mallo Cups that I can find. It's almost impossible to find them anywhere the rest of the year and they are my sister's favorite candy bar, so I stock up and throw a few bags her way for Christmas.

25+ years in retail has long ago destroyed any meaning for Christmas, to me. Retail stores make the bulk of their annual earnings during the Holiday season. That's why the focus starts early. They want to get it going now, to offset weather or other issues upsetting things later. It's hard to make up the difference if things are bad at the start. of course, most of that is because Wall Street is the one wagging the tail of the retail dog. They want massive return on investment in the next quarter, not 5 or 10 years from now. It's symptomatic of a lot of society, though I think it drives a lot of that. Like I have said to my co-workers; I am a Charlie Bucket, in a world of Veruca Salts. Wall Street is the worst of the species.

I'm an atheist, though raised in a Christian household. The whole "Reason for the Season," just stirs me to point out all of the pagan traditions of the season, that have nothing to do with a celebration that even the Church didn't celebrate, much, until the Victorian Era. Leaving that element aside, Christmas, to me, was always about bringing a bit of fantasy into life and watching society be charmed by it and act a little better. Rampant consumerism has all but destroyed that; but, it is nothing new and the cry has gone up for generations. Rankin-Bass and Dr Seuss pointed fingers in the 60s and 70s. Stan Freberg poked fun at it with his records. There were cries from critics in the days of radio. Even Virginia had to be told that, yes, there is a Santa Claus. Problem is, his shareholders are looking for 20% growth over the previous season.

I liked your attitude here about nog! 

I really don't like Christmas. I'm honestly not a fan of holidays in general and my favorites tend to be those that don't stress people out and just give me a chance to put something on the smoker and relax. With my kids all grown and my grandkids 700 miles away what little meaning Christmas had is pretty much gone. It's just a reason for my wife to stress over something.

It also means I have to deal with the annual "War on Christmas" bullshit from the mouth-breathers and that makes my blood-pressure go up. The damn holiday now preoccupies the entire country for a quarter of a year but somehow the snowflakes are being oppressed.

BAH HUMBUG!

Christmas has always been a bother for me because of the heavy letters ( back before the late 90's) and now the heavy Packages. I always end up too tired to enjoy the holiday. My first wife had her birthday on Christmas Eve , which made it more hectic to please everyone. 

Amazon is now going to deliver fresh cut Christmas tree's this year. Egad's, is there nothing Amazon won't ship out to make a buck? Why do we need stores anymore? Just order everything off the internet because its convenient and easy. Hell, keep the tree in the box and you won't have to deal with all those messy pine needle droppings as the tree drys out. Day after Christmas you can just box that dead old tree up and take it out to the recycle bin...