Retailers Pushing Christian Holidays

[Quintessence]

If you live in the United States (I can't speak for if this is the case in other countries), you've probably noticed how major retail outlets carry certain holiday items well ahead of the events they are actually used for. There are two holidays in particular that are the worst offenders for this trend. They both happen to be Christian holidays: Easter and Christmas.

Right after Valentine's Day - this is February, folks - retailers started stocking Easter candy. Easter isn't until late April. This means stores are stocking seasonal items for a Christian religious holiday a two full months ahead of when it actually happens. They might have had it out even earlier, but I didn't notice as I tend to ignore seasonal isles on most of my shopping trips. A month early I could understand. Two months is really, really pushing it. The same thing happens around Christmas in my country.

Whether intentional or not, these practices have the effect of pushing Christian holidays onto the general public. Granted, virtually everything that is marketed is secularized through and through, but it remains that these traditions come from a single religion. Which other religion has its holiday merchandize stocked two, even three months ahead of when it happens? Is there one? Where are the retailers stocking up on seder foodstuffs for Rosh Hashanah two months early? Why is it I can't even get moon cakes for the Chinese Moon Festival? I know, I know: supply meets demand. It's the principle of the thing.

How do you guys feel about retailers stocking religious holiday items (Christian or otherwise) stupidly early? Rant, rave, praise, celebrate. I'll probably add some more comments myself later.

 

[fantome profane]

I like chocolate eggs. I hate Christmas carols.

If consumers are going to buy something, retailers will put it on their shelves.

watchagonado?

 

[Revoltingest]

Those holidays aren't all that Xian. My heathen family has been celebrating them
as long as I've been alive, & no religious meaning ever crept into the festivities.
Note: I do hate all the obligations of present giving.

 

[technomage]

If you live in the United States (I can't speak for if this is the case in other countries), you've probably noticed how major retail outlets carry certain holiday items well ahead of the events they are actually used for. There are two holidays in particular that are the worst offenders for this trend. They both happen to be Christian holidays: Easter and Christmas.

Right after Valentine's Day - this is February, folks - retailers started stocking Easter candy. Easter isn't until late April. This means stores are stocking seasonal items for a Christian religious holiday a two full months ahead of when it actually happens. They might have had it out even earlier, but I didn't notice as I tend to ignore seasonal isles on most of my shopping trips. A month early I could understand. Two months is really, really pushing it. The same thing happens around Christmas in my country.

Whether intentional or not, these practices have the effect of pushing Christian holidays onto the general public. Granted, virtually everything that is marketed is secularized through and through, but it remains that these traditions come from a single religion. Which other religion has its holiday merchandize stocked two, even three months ahead of when it happens? Is there one? Where are the retailers stocking up on seder foodstuffs for Rosh Hashanah two months early? Why is it I can't even get moon cakes for the Chinese Moon Festival? I know, I know: supply meets demand. It's the principle of the thing.

How do you guys feel about retailers stocking religious holiday items (Christian or otherwise) stupidly early? Rant, rave, praise, celebrate. I'll probably add some more comments myself later.

If Wicca was the dominant religious paradigm in the US, we'd see Samhain stuff start appearing on the shelves before Mabon was finished.

It's not about the religion--it is, and always has been, about the money.

 

[Nyingjé Tso]

Easter and Christmas are barely religious anymore here... Only a handful of christian still "religiously" celebrate it. Otherwise it's completely secular. My family was never christian yet we celebrated each year christmas with food and gifts, and easter with chocolates... I didn't even knew it was religious before my teens, actually.

So... I don't really care they stock up months before. It's more about eating chocolates than celebrating christianity, and all that matters to them is that chocolate eggs sells more than chinese cakes. I find it sad too actually, but I hardly think it matters that people are sad or angry with that, it won't change consumer's habits.

Good thing is, you can find stuff related to Chinese or Hindu or any other religion in places where those communities are gathered, in big cities where there are temples and this kind of thing. But it's always... Quite a niche.

 

[Drolefille]

I'm agreeing with the rest, it's about the money. Halloween stuff comes out nearly before the 4th of the July. And American Christmas is still KIND of religious but what's in stores is nearly completely commercial. Valentine's Day (not really religious as a holiday) stuff comes out before Christmas stuff is on 75% off. 4th of July "stuff" will be out by the time Easter actually hits.

I'm guilty of assisting this because I buy cadbury caramel eggs from the moment they show up for my boyfriend and then try to hide them in various drawers throughout the year so I can surprise him with eggs in october.

 

[Assad91]

What do you expect? If it was an ______ majority country, the ____ holidays would be pushed

 

[Tarheeler]

How do you guys feel about retailers stocking religious holiday items (Christian or otherwise) stupidly early? Rant, rave, praise, celebrate. I'll probably add some more comments myself later.

It irks be a bit, but not too much; I get irritated when things are stripped of their meaning in order to make a buck.

I get far more irked when I have to order the stuff for my holidays on-line because I can't find a chanukkiah or an etrog in town.

 

[technomage]

It irks be a bit, but not too much; I get irritated when things are stripped of their meaning in order to make a buck.

I get far more irked when I have to order the stuff for my holidays on-line because I can't find a chanukkiah or an etrog in town.

Depends on where you're at. Charlotte's got a fairly substantial Jewish community, and I've seen etrogs in some of the stores there at the appropriate times.

 

[Tarheeler]

Depends on where you're at. Charlotte's got a fairly substantial Jewish community, and I've seen etrogs in some of the stores there at the appropriate times.

But that doesn't really do me a whole lotta good if I'm not in Charlotte, now does it?

 

[technomage]

But that doesn't really do me a whole lotta good if I'm not in Charlotte, now does it?

Well, no, but how far out in the boonies are you? Where I lived now ... heck, Gastonia, Hendersonville, or Spartanburg are my closest synagogues. I'm pretty far out in the boonies.

When I used to live in Columbia, SC, I was in the middle of a neighborhood with several Jewish families. I kind of adopted my next-door neighbors while I lived there--a very sweet older couple who couldn't get around anymore like they wanted to, so I'd be shabbat goy for them, or shovel their driveway when it snowed, little things to help out. When the husband passed away and the wife moved to an assisted living facility, it felt like losing part of the family.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

In marketing it is called priming the pump. You want to prepare the consumer to spend money, so you have to remind them that certain timed shopping events are on the way. They really don't expect the consumer to buy Christmas stuff in August or October but want to put the pressure on the consumer that it is coming.

 

[CynthiaCypher]

I used to work in marketing before I got by soul back.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

When I was working at a Dollar General distribution center, Halloween started a month or so ahead of time, Thanksgiving was the same, but Christmas junk was shipped out about 3-4 months before December (even before Halloween and Thanksgiving). Valentines was out the door way before Christmas day had come, and a moderate amount of Easter junk was going out just after New Years. Even if there were no holidays within the next month or two, holiday items were being shipped out in massive amounts. Seeing the commercialism in our holidays to that extent killed off any enjoyment I got out of the holidays as night-after-night my job was to make sure the mountains of holiday junk got out so people could continue making the holidays about junk.

 

[Awkward Fingers]

Ad long as I get my Cadbury eggs, I don't care what gets stocked..

Its all for the money, anyway. When it comes to holidays and stores, religion has lost to capitalism and consumerism.

 

[Sees]

We always get stuff after the holiday is over and things are 50-90% off

I treat these holidays as cultural and ancestral so I don't mind the Christian aspect being side by side with the older aspects.

 

[Vinayaka]

It doesn't bother me because I'm not a normal consumer affected by marketing. I buy what I need or want, not what some external force (in this case capitalism) tries to manipulate me into thinking I need. Don't do Easter, candy or chocolate at all, so the chocolate Easter bunnies would all die a lonesome death on the shelves of Walmart if everyone was like this.

 

[Quintessence]

I will confess that I like that the Easter stuff comes out as early as it does, because my spring religious holiday is in March, and all of the stuff they make for Easter extremely appropriate for Vernal Equinox.

 

[technomage]

I will confess that I like that the Easter stuff comes out as early as it does, because my spring religious holiday is in March, and all of the stuff they make for Easter extremely appropriate for Vernal Equinox.

And because chocolate is ALWAYS appropriate!

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I really don't care.