The Virgin Mimi wrote:
So do your shops not stock Christmassy type things until December 5th? See, I wouldn't mind that, if (say) stores here did not have their Christmas ranges until December 1st,
but it would make things really difficult for us as we usually have all our Christmas shopping done by early-mid November. Because of the nature of the workplace that Russell and I are in (head office of a large chain of retail outlets) our holidays are sanctioned around Christmas time, so nobody can take days off in December, so we'd be scuppered.
We'd still have the internet to shop by, I guess, but then we'd not see the wintery wonderland shops
Most garden centers have completely decked the halls in Christmas stuff for at least November (probably a couple of weeks before). This is mostly because there is hardly any decoration to be sold for Sinterklaas and they apparently need several months to sell all their Christmas crocodile baubles (yes I bought one).
Present wise, people need to shop for Sinterklaas and / or Christmas gifts and so there are sales and extended openings and special offers etc around anyway.