Merry Halloween, holiday shoppers
Grand Rapids– Consumers are seeing red.
Red, that is, in Christmas ornaments and tinsel hanging right next to pumpkins, goblins and broomsticks.
This holiday creep is making some shoppers grumble about three, even four months, of retail Christmas cheer.
Lynelle Collins was trying to shop for Halloween last week in the Standale Meijer store but was having trouble keeping her 5-year-old son, Noland, away from the singing Christmas trees and Santa dogs.
“I’m not going to look at Christmas (merchandise) early. In fact, I find this quite annoying,” said Collins, 40, of Grand Rapids.
“This takes away from the religious aspect of Christmas, and this is purely commercial.”
Long ago, merchants stocked their shelves for the holidays in late November and trained shoppers to flock to stores the day after Thanksgiving.
But over the years, the Christmas push has put the red and green next to Columbus Day and Halloween.
This year, 25 percent of merchants surveyed told the Michigan Retailers Association they were launching their holiday season earlier than ever.
You can hear Christmas music at Costco and get holiday decor on sale at Michaels arts and crafts stores.
Wal-Mart just announced “an aggressive” holiday price rollback on 15,000 items, almost 10 weeks before the presents are opened.
Since early October, WLHT-FM has been touting plans to offer Christmas music around the clock “because you’ve asked for more.”
Rob Thomasma, a Grand Rapids cosmetologist, was flabbergasted to see artificial Christmas trees at a Fruit Basket Flowerland store — before Labor Day.
“Here I am looking for good deals on end-of-season hanging flower baskets, and there’s the trees,” Thomasma said. “This early push doesn’t make me want to shop earlier; it just gives me a bah-humbug attitude.”
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