A couple of days ago I noticed that there were suddenly a great many programs on TV about veterans and war. I wondered what was going on and then it occurred to me, "Veterans Day." But Veterans Day at the time was still six days off.
So evidently there is now a Veterans Day "season," shall we say, that lasts about a week.
Well, every holiday seems to have evolved into a whole season. Halloween--to judge from when you start to see decorations on homes and elsewhere, and horror movies being shown on TV--now lasts for the whole month of October.
This trend isn't anything new; it's been going on for many years. The Christmas season--defined as when businesses and institutions put up Christmas decorations, you begin hearing Christmas music, and you start seeing and hearing advertising for "holiday" and Christmas gift "ideas"—has been getting earlier and earlier for a very long time.
One of the reasons for this trend has to be because for marketers, Christmas--or any other season for which they can sell you something, be it Halloween costumes, home decorations tied to the season, gifts, etc.--is profitable, so of course they'd like to see the season last as long as possible. The more days when they can sell you their merchandise, the more profit for them. (That's simple and indisputable; when we hear forecasts for Christmas sales, they always take into account how long the Christmas selling season is, that is, the number of shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas.) Once upon a time, the Christmas season was said to start right after Thanksgiving. Now it's the beginning of November. It's gotten to where it can't get any earlier because it's bumped right into Halloween. But maybe I should not suppose that two holidays can't overlap; if they can, then the trend for the Christmas season to begin earlier and earlier might be able to go on. If the fact that a couple of holidays come in between doesn't matter, one day we'll see the Christmas stuff start right after the Fourth of July.
Copyright © 2011 by Richard Stein
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