The 12 months of Christmas

Second only to the dreaded Black Friday story, in which one gets sent out to interview frantic shoppers on a day when the last thing they want to do is explain to reporters why they have lost their minds, is the "earlier and earlier start to the holiday shopping season" story, which is being written in newspapers across America this week.

Michael Barbaro drew the short straw and got stuck with the assignment for The Times. Under the headline, "Shopping Bargains Before the First Bite of Turkey," he reports:

Disregarding the last known boundaries between tradition and capitalism, retailers are trying to persuade Americans to start their Black Friday shopping before the first bite of Thanksgiving dinner.

This is one of those topics that supplants discussions about the weather this time of year -- we all love to complain that the start of the shopping season is being moved back to June.

It's nothing new, of course. The trend seems to have begun at the height of the Great Depression.

October 21, 1934, p. N15

PREPARING FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Stores here will make early bid for Christmas Business

While attention at the moment centres largely on immediate and November promotions, retail executives indicated during the week that an early start will be made on plans for the forthcoming Christmas holiday season. Toy departments will be opened in many cases a week to ten days before Thanksgiving, although the early openings in past years have not been productive of much additional volume as most customers do not begin Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving Day.

I tried to trace the very start of this conspiracy, and the best answer I could find was not in The Times, but in the Washington Post:

October 29th, 1933

EARLY SHOPPING GROUP TO MEET
Speeding Yuletide buying again this year, is program

With a view to inaugurating the Christmas shopping season before Thanksgiving, the Shop Early-Mail Early Committee of the Washington Merchants and Manufacturers Association will meet Tuesday.

Through previous efforts, the committee has been instrumental in moving the mail peak date ahead to a week before Christmas, enabling post office employees to have the day off. The committee regards Thanksgiving Day as the chief cause for delay in Christmas shopping, as the public does not begin to think about the Yuletide season until Thanksgiving is passed, it is pointed out.

Members of the committee who will study means for moving up the shopping days are Sylvan King, chairman; E.D. Shaw, secretary of the Merchants and Manufacturers; Sidney Selinger, L.T. Conway, I. Behrend, Joseph R. Harris, J. Rotto, Dewey Zirkin, M.M. Watson, James Parker, J.K. Althaus, Joseph D. Kaufman, Charles Frame, George A. McCann, J.W. Hardy, Arthur Baum, John R. Palmer, William Friel, Arthur J. Sundlun, Mark Lansburgh and Postmaster William M. Mooney.

Comments

[kimberly kinchen]

Wow. Horribly long bureaucratic titles for groups like this one is also a well-worn tradition.

I love that they spin imoving the peak mail date so that it's all about the postal workers and not moving their merchandise up to the last minute (my best guess). And that there's a Postmaster on the committe.