This is an open letter to all retailers out there! Please, stop making Christmas come earlier and earlier every year.
We, the consumers of this world, get it. We realize that you make most of you’re your yearly income from the Christmas season. We also realize that to increase the value of your business you need people to hop on board the ‘buy more’ bandwagon. We also get that the earlier you get people to buy your crap, the more they will buy, the longer they will shop and the more money you will make in the long run. And yes, we even get the fact that your business, which you swear is all about us, the customers, is really all about the share holders who make a mint of off us, the consumer!
But here’s the thing! We are all sick of Merry Freaking-Hallow-Thanks-Christmukkah EVE! We are tired of feeling the rush of the holidays approaching earlier and earlier each and every year. Just one year, we would like to go ‘back to school’ shopping without seeing the hidden boxes of holiday streamers in red, green and gold sitting on the top shelf. We would like to buy Halloween costumes without feeling forced to dress our kids as Mrs. Claus or an elf. We would like to get through Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, and Thanksgiving and enjoy the commencement of fall and the changing seasons without being forced to listen songs about snowfalls or seeing red ribbons in your mailers and store advertisements.
Just one season, we would like to sit down with our families on Thanksgiving and enjoy the turkey and the football game without being stressed and freaked out feverishly planning out a road map of the Black Friday sales so we can be made to pretend like we are saving a ton of money on one stupid item that you won’t even have in stock when we stand in line at 3am in the morning while a house full of our out of town family members sleep in our beds. Even worse, is a few years ago, the sale flyers didn’t come out till after Thanksgiving and now the sale ads are littering up our inboxes and mailboxes making the traditional Black Friday seem like nothing but a ploy to confuse and stress out the human race.
And speaking of 3 am! Could you have some respect for your employees, which are also your customers, and your customers which are also your employees and stop opening up earlier and staying open later in order to get more people to come in and shop? The season is supposed to be about spending time with family, not spending money on family and definitely not spending time in your store. Seriously, if people cannot find time to shop between the regular business hours – then perhaps they really don’t have the desire to shop. After all, how many people are really visiting your store at midnight?
Since we as the consumers ‘get’ what you are doing by pushing up Christmas each and every year, we would like you to know that we know when Christmas is. Christmas is December 25th, and all the shopping that any family needs to do can be done in a few weeks if not in just one day. Is it really necessary to start advertising for a holiday some 2, 3 or 4 months before it even comes? Do you think that we, the consumers are stupid? Have you seen the current state of the economy? Do you realize that if things continue the way they are, in the years to come no one will be able to afford Christmas altogether, even if you start advertising in July? Do you really think that we, the consumers, are falling for all those cozy holiday bulletins and million dollar commercials with cute little songs and visions of puppy dogs and Santa and happy kids? The truth is that your creation of Christmas into an overgrown season rather than a holiday is doing more damage than good by causing people to stress out beyond belief.
We, the consumers, believe that a law needs to be put into place which says that companies can only advertise for the holidays after a specific date. That stores cannot totally ruin Canadian and American Holidays that have nothing to do with Christmas by completely skipping them altogether and decking the halls with bells and holly and Christmas trees months and months in advance. All of us would be happy to get into the holiday spirit if you would just wait and let us to live one day at a time, one month at a time and one holiday at a time. And since there are no laws, we the consumers will have to start taking a personal stand – to get our own warm feelings of Christmas back!
We also believe that if you would quit rushing us and pressuring us, we would be able to enjoy the true Christmas holiday spirit. We would gladly accept egg nog at the doors to your store, would ooohhh and ahhhh and the fabulous decorations, would sing along as we spent too much money in your store to the tunes being pushed through the media system. Heck, we might even throw a few coins in the buckets of the bell-ringers who stand in front of your doors to welcome us! In fact, we believe that if you would slow down, would quit bullying us into sales and making us feel like we have to shop till we drop 3 months before the big day – we would be less scrooge like and might even WANT to spend MORE money in your store.
The time has come for us, for we – the consumers to speak up! There are millions of us who are sick and tired of Christmas being a 3 or even 4 month event. We will refuse to shop your stores, will begin to write on your Facebook walls, will leave ‘un-jolly’ messages with your bosses on Wall Street, will set up ways to band together shoppers who just want to be given back the opportunity to celebrate Halloween, Fall, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving and then Christmas… in that order, in a timely manner.
