How early is too early?!

Christmas in October?!

I've been hearing a lot of people complaining about businesses playing holiday music and putting out Christmas merchandise too early.  There are Facebook pages dedicated to stopping stores from playing the holiday tunes prior to Thanksgiving.   Stop Annoying Christmas Music's Facebook page   have mixed feelings about this because I LOVE fall and enjoy having my pumpkins, mums, and scarecrows out for decoration.  I also love Christmas though.  Putting up the tree is a lot of work so I'd like to enjoy it as long as I can.  I usually can't contain myself and wait until Thanksgiving to put my tree up.  In fact, my son really wants to put it up this weekend and I'm seriously considering letting him have his way.  I guess I don't have a problem with bringing on the holiday spirit prior to Thanksgiving, but for me, prior to Halloween is just entirely too early!  I definitely noticed Christmas decorations in the windows of Pier One the week before Halloween and a few days before when I was buying Halloween candy to hand out to trick or treaters, the candy aisle was split with both Halloween and Christmas candy!  I'm a big fan of Halloween and feel like we should get through the scary, creepy stuff before we bring on the glittery, frosty stuff!  Some consumers are so seriously disturbed by this early celebrating that they are refusing to shop at stores who choose to infect their ears with jingle bells and hohoho's.  Read more about angry shoppers HERE!  Another controversial issues amongst holiday shoppers is that of Black Friday.  Last year, Wal-Mart started their Black Friday sale on Thursday night!  I admit, I participated in this. I've always gone Black Friday shopping with my mom.  It usually consists of going out around 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning and staying out until around noon.  I actually liked getting an early start last year.  We got in and out, went to bed my midnight then got up at a decent hour to do more shopping the next day.  Earlier this week Wal-Mart put out their Black Friday ad for this year.  Wal-Mart's Black Friday ad!  I notice they are doing the sale in 3 "events".  The first starting at 8 PM on Thanksgiving night, the 2nd event is at 10 PM, and the 3rd at 5 AM.  I don't like that they are breaking it up into 3 separate events.  I will probably not stick around for the 3rd event, but I do plan to check out the 8 & 10 PM sales!