Articles: Christmas in August as retailers rev up holiday offers from Today.com; and Halloween in August? Christmas in October? This annoying retail trend is here to stay from Time.com
Now that school has started and summer vacation past, we are in lockdown mode on spending at my house, saving up to buy gifts (and give to charity) for a holiday that's little more than four months away.
We're not the only ones. In 2012, the average US family spent almost $750 for Christmas, with about $271 of that on average per child. Here's an info graphic that shows some cool stats, including that 12 percent of consumers begin their shopping before September (yikes ... that's now, people!).
I am curious … nosy, really … What do you do? Who is on your shopping list and how much do you spend?
And if you feel tempted to rail against the commercialization of Christmas and how the real reason for the season gets lost, yadda, yadda … spare me. I'm with you. I get weary of it all too.
"For the past 50 years or so I've been getting more and more worried about Christmas. It seems we're all so busy trying to beat the other fellow in making things go faster and look shinier and cost less that Christmas and I are sort of getting lost in the shuffle." – Kris Kringle, Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
… which, by the way, was released in May of that year because the studio heads knew more people went to the movies in the summer.
Commercialization? Year 'round holiday marketing? Not new.
But the fact is, Christmas is no different than any other event: it takes time and planning to pull it off. I'm curious about how you do it, not the morality behind it. We can talk about that another time.
Or not.
So I put together a little non-scientific, confidential online survey and ask you to please just click through and answer some easy-peasy Qs - just 10! - about holiday spending habits. I will share the results in a future blog post. Thanks!
Oh, and by the way ... 122 more days until Christmas.
Take the survey
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