This ‘bonfire of the calendars’ for the sake of festive sales
We are being rushed from one ‘special event’ to another in the name of commercialism, writes Tristan Cork, with a plea to resist an early Christmas
IT was Friday, November 2 – just a couple of days after Hallowe’en and we were into that strange period between the ghoul festival and Bonfire Night.
It’s a weird time of year, those few days when you’re not quite sure if you should be lighting a candle inside a pumpkin or sticking a rocket into one and lighting the fuse.
But this day – Friday, November 2, – was the day that the flagship stores in Bristol decided it was neither Hallowe’en nor Fireworks Night, but the day that the Christmas period had begun.
House of Fraser’s giant snow and Christmas tree scenes bedecked the halls of the large window displays fronting Temple Way at the bottom of the M32, while at the front of the store in Cabot Circus, a few elegant, understated Christmas trees appeared.
Around the corner at Harvey Nichols, everything was ostentatiously gold and green, with baubles and dangly things, sending shimmering circles of light onto the street below.
Yes, November 2, heading into the first weekend of November. That’s before Fireworks Night and, perhaps most poignantly, before Remembrance Sunday.
This year. November 11 is special. Very special. For a start, a fitting quirk of the calendar has November 11 falling on an actual Sunday this month.
And secondly, this is poignantly apt given that this Sunday will be the 100th anniversary of the origins of Remembrance Sunday – Armistice Day back in 1918 when a halt was finally called to the barbarity and pointless sacrifice of millions of men across Europe.
For many people, especially those of us who have recent family memory of lives cut short in or following military service for this country, Remembrance Day is a special, sacred time.
But when the poppy sellers are out in force this week in the city centre, the shops are done out like it’s December 11 and not November 11.
To me, this seems like a bit of an insult. It feels like a snook being cocked at Guy Fawkes’ Night and Remembrance Day especially. It feels like the message is, ‘We simply can’t wait to start telling you it’s nearly Christmas’, like Christmas is pushing in front in the queue.
What House of Fraser’s giant Christmas trees and the golden mannequins at Harvey Nichols are doing is barging ahead of a quiet, understated poppy seller, desperate to grab our attention.
This, of course, is nothing new. It’s a hoary old chestnut roasting on the bonfire of the calendars.
But there was once a time that people complained when Christmas decorations went up before the start of December. Letters of outrage filled local newspaper pages at the sight of a bit of tinsel before the last week of November.
But here, on Friday, November 2, it wasn’t even the end of the first week of November. It’s more than seven weeks to Christmas.
Why is this happening? Why is Christmas now getting so big that it begins almost two months before?
The answer, of course, is not about Christmas at all. It’s not even about feeling festive and snug and wanting to have mulled cider instead of regular cider.
It’s about selling stuff. It’s about reminding everyone that it’s Christmas and you really should be thinking about buying presents for people already.
Of course, we live in a free country where retail displays are concerned. You can have a shop selling Christ- mas decorations all year round. You could have a shop selling Easter eggs in November if you wanted.
But what’s becoming increasingly apparent is that it always has to be some different time of the year. Retailers hate nothing more than ‘dead time’, when it’s not building up to something.
After Christmas, the next retail date on the calendar is Valentine’s Day – which now begins towards the end of January.
To occupy that ‘dead time’ between New Year and Valentine’s Day, they’ll put in the New Year sales, as if that’s an actual thing in the calendar now.
Then after Valentine’s Day it’s Easter, and after Easter it’s ‘summer’. Then the supermarkets are full of ‘back to school’ stuff, and Hallowe’en starts as soon as October begins.
Perhaps we are genetically programmed to feel more secure with this seasonal thing mapped out for us. Our nomadic ancestors would have travelled the land with the turn of the seasons.
Our medieval forefathers set their internal clocks by the passing of religious high days and holidays, bobbing apples when they were plentiful on All Hallows’ Eve, wassailing the trees in the New Year and dancing round a maypole to greet the longer days.
So it’s not new, but enforced.
Our lives are shielded from the turn of the seasons far more than they ever were, with our offices and homes and cars. It’s just a crying shame that we are now told what time of year it is only by what is in the ‘seasonal’ aisle at the supermarket.
And once we’ve given up control of that passage of time, then we’re no longer free. We’re not free to progress at our own pace, and pause and live.
So what’s the alternative. It’s simple. Don’t fall for it. Resist.
If a shop has its Christmas decorations up before you feel they should, don’t shop there.
If you walk into a shop and hear Fairytale of New York in early November, walk out again.
it is now
What House of
Fraser’s giant Christmas trees and
the golden mannequins at Harvey Nichols are doing is barging ahead of a quiet, understated poppy seller, desperate to grab our attention