For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for November 02, 2011

I could have sworn that back when this strip first ran, we didn’t hear Christmas stuff on the radio until the day after Thanksgiving.

They’ve had Christmas decor in the Dollar stores for over a month.

At our local CVS Pharmacy, they had wrapping paper for sale the day after Labor Day (first Monday in September, for all those outside the US of A).

You can tell when it’s Easter They start advertising Xmas goods!!

Makes you not like any holiday anymore.

I know. They just put up the Christmas tree where I work yesterday. Joy ..sigh..

When I was approx 10 years of age, we only had “Sinterklaas” (december 5) When I became 20, some nitwit thought it would be fun to introduce Valentine, At the age of 30, people around me started to give each other X-mas gifts. I’m over 50 now. and to my horror, we start with haloween. Yes another nice commercial day. "Sinterklaas"is now the day for small kids age<10, X-mas is THE day for the electronics retail stores TV, PC, you name it, as long as it is expensive and has a powercord, it sells.The waiting is for the bunny to hand out gifts, and not only colored eggs.

@kees I’m in my 30’s and my mom still gets me a bag of the chocolate coins from “St Nicholas aka Sinterklaas” every year.

Too bad there’s no Thanksgiving music. It’s one of my favorite holidays!

The real holidays are the same as always – if the culture around us wants to commercialize them (which they’ve been doing for some generations now), that’s their business. How I choose to observe the holidays is mine.

Actually, this has gone on for a while. There was a Peanut’s comic strip in the early sixties when I was a little girl where Charlie Brown complained to Violet that he had gone to the 5 and Dime to buy a Halloween mask and they were all out. When she asked if they were going to get any more in, he replied. “No. They were too busy putting up Christmas decorations!!!!!”

This Christmas, a new ipod!!!!

I’ve been advocating for years now, that the Canadian MP’s who have the “Heritage” Portfolio should put a private members bill making it illegal to sell Christmas stuff – paper, lights, trees, – or even hang that stuff, between January 10th and November 15th.

Why those dates? Well the 12 Days of Christmas run Dec 25-Jan 6, so it gives them 4 extra ‘sale days’, and Remembrance Day (Veterans day for the Americans) is on Nov 11, and should be kept ‘sacred’. .Any store that DOES have Christmas themed stuff for sale during Jan 10-Aug 1 would be fined $500/day, and from Aug 1-Nov 15 would rise to $5000/day. (At least, that’s my hope.).Each store can get an exception to show Christmas stuff early, but they’d also be required to have an actual Remembrance Day ceremony IN THE STORE, with Veterans. :D

A hobby $tore here had Halloween and Chri$tma$ $tuff on di$play in Augu$t! Filled half of the $tore.

Happymerrythank$givinchri$tma$newyear$eveday!

@Allen V, that is a horrible sentiment, and I think you should be ashamed that you just said that. I love Christmas – and I don’t just mean the decorations, I mean, I love Jesus. And I for one, find there is no more enjoyable thing to see than Christmas decor in the stores and store fronts. BTW, it seems you want this “law” b/c you feel Rememberance day is forgotten behind a facade of Christmas stuff (I just bought my annual poppy yesterday at one of the many stores which carry them). Well, if your law was enacted, I should think a fine should be imposed on all stores who sell Santa themed Christmas items b/c Christmas is about celebrating Jesus, but we’ve turned it into Santa-mas instead. Seems fair, don’t you think?

That’s because we celebrate Thanksgiving at the beginning of October. When you have Thanksgiving, we will likely be buried under 3 feet of snow!

This is so true! As soon as Halloween is over, the store is selling Christmas stuff and people have blow-up snowmen on their lawns and Christmas lights (but they’re only holiday decorations for them, not Christmas, since for them Christmas is just a turkey dinner and presents.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinterklaas

By the way, “Christmas” trees, greenery, etc were around well before Christian religious aspects were added to the holiday. And it was Queen Victoria’s German husband, Albert, who brought the tree idea to England. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yule As for mistletoe . . .

@comicnut4636 and Allen V – As a crafter, I would exempt hobby and craft stores – since if you want to make anything of any size you need to start earlier than if you are just buying,

On Halloween I saw an ad for a store promoting their Christmas stuff. Couldn’t they have waited one more day??? I saw holiday store displays back in July, mostly at the art & craft places. I like Thanksgiving because there is no pressure to buy gifts & decorations for it and it falls on my birthday every 4 years!

I went grocery shopping yesterday and was looking for a birthday card, and there was a clerk stocking Christmas cards. Sheesh! Now that’s just silly.

Money talks. I had a friend that worked for a tape factory in Jacksonville, Ill. He said the worst part of the job was being in quality control – checking Christmas cassetts in July. Also, when I was little, when a couple got married, they went on a honeymoon, and when they returned we held a chivoree. With most couples living together today before marriage, what is the purpose of a honeymoon? Why is the honeymoon still with us but not chivorees? Answer: All that could be sold for a chivoree was a couple jugs of cider and a few doughnuts – no profit there.

Christmas can come too early, All Saints day (i.e. the day after Halloween) is too early.

I was at our local Wal-Mart today and won’t you know, there was a decorated Christmas tree up and lit and all kinds of Christmas accessories. We bought two boxes of Spriritual Christmas cards while there. We love Jesus too. We feel bad it His earthly birthday and He’s never invited to the festivities.

we had christmas stuff in our stores two weeks before halloween

We listen to the radio at work, and the day after Thanksgiving the Christmas songs will start, doesn’t matter what station. and the closer it gets to Christmas, it soon becomes ALL Christmas songs. I’m get so sick of Christmas songs, and most of them aren’t spirtual either. The one I never tire of is the funny version of 12 days of Christmas, the one about untangling the Christmas lights!

@luckylouie – Labor Day is the same date in the States ANDin Canada.

I don’t know why we can’t just have holidays as they come instead of being forced to think about them for months in advance! Makes you hate every single one of them because you have to look at all the store displays for so long before the actual holiday gets there.

Sorry for the continued Halloween avatar. I’m not being lazy about changing it; I’m just having trouble finding one that Go Comics will accept! So far, I’m having absolutely no luck in that department no matter what image I choose . . .

Yup—saw this coming somewhat after the first panel, and definitely after the second. Hide me!!.And, Night-Gaunt49, thanks for making me think of “I am the walrus” by the Beatles—great song.

I’ve been irritated by this Christmas-Too-Early thing for years on end, in my country it’s IKEA that starts off, usually, with the slogan: Your Christmas starts in IKEA. Why no thanks, my Christmas starts in December! I’d like it to be the first Sunday of Advent or Dec. 1st, whichever comes first.

But then, just last year I figured I’d stop being mad about this because it only means I feel worse, it sure isn’t going to change anything. So now I listen to our State Radio station and a classical music station we have up here, no Xmas songs until December, and stay clear of malls and department stores as well as I can. Not a problem :)

@gobblinup: I play Vince Guaraldi songs for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The holiday specials are so integrated into the actual holidays for me that, “Linus and Lucy,” will put me into the mood for whatever holiday is on the horizon. The Thanksgiving special had a couple of original songs in it – nothing specifically about Thanksgiving, but they do the trick when there’s nothing else.