Halloween and Christmas Collide

Halloween collided with Christmas on November 1. I was out in the shops, which were lively with shoppers, more than twice the usual number. The background music was Christmas carols. But many of the shoppers were doing last-minute shopping, buying Halloween costumes for their Saturday night parties.

The reason for the early Christmas shopping was not to avoid the crowds, but to get the local shopping done before the end of November so that any remaining purchases that had to be made online could be placed in plenty of time. Shoppers who take this approach are just getting started on their intensive three or four weeks of in-store shopping. The result, though, is that there is no place for a gap between the Halloween and Christmas seasons. This weekend, they are overlapping.