We take a firm stand against Holiday Creep, which is when retailers start to merchandise and decorate for a given holiday months in advance. The offending holiday is usually, but not always, Christmas. Every year around this time, we hear from exasperated shoppers who walk by a Hallmark gift shop and see their display of new Christmas ornaments, leading our readers to wonder what this world is coming to. Yet Hallmark’s Christmas displays aren’t what they seem.
Reader Anthony snapped this photo at the Mall of America last Friday, and was understandably surprised to see Christmas decorations out before Independence Day. That’s just because he doesn’t understand the ancient and mysterious ways of Hallmark ornament collectors.
Way back in 2009, we first learned about Hallmark’s terrible Christmas tradition. “We’ve been holding Ornament Premiere in July for 15+ years,” a Hallmark representative explained to Consumerist, explaining why the company needed to hold its Christmas ornament premiere during July. That means now the company has been at it for more than 20 years, and they claim that the early introduction of these ornaments isn’t meant to make ordinary shoppers think about the holiday.
“The premiere event is mainly for ornament collectors, and yes, there are a lot of them, that shop year round,” the same Hallmark representative explained to us back in 2009. “They would be really happy if put out the next year’s ornaments on December 26, but we wait until July.”
Maybe they could try that in the future, or perhaps they could even start putting out items for the following Christmas before Thanksgiving, achieving peak Christmas Creep and causing the whole idea of marketing to collapse on itself.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist