Pumpkins, Halloween and vibrant multicolored leaves are all things associated with the autumn months. However, stores have been pushing their fall merchandise well before fall begins and turning the season into an over commercialized mess.
The first day of fall is Sept. 22, but businesses have been putting out pumpkin-flavored treats, Halloween decorations and autumnal clothes since early August and sweeping summer under the rug.
While I love autumn, its holidays and the cool weather it brings, I also appreciate the last days of summer and skipping the end to artificially experience a season that will come in a few weeks anyway is ridiculous.
However, businesses don’t share that sentiment and are eager to abruptly drop summer to introduce the pumpkin spice and Halloween frights of fall. Then, they capitalize on the season as much as possible and sap the fun right out of it.
Dumping summer in early August is a questionable business strategy due to it abruptly ending the retail sector’s summer season and makes any leftover merchandise feel out of place with the new fall items.
Stores and coffee shops not only introduce their fall items too early but incessantly advertise them. I’ve already lost count of how many ads I have seen for Starbucks’ pumpkin spice coffees and clothes that are “in” for the season at Kohls.
The flood of ads for autumnal apparel and fall food everywhere weeks before the season actually begins is incredibly annoying, particularly when temperatures are still high and bar people from comfortably enjoying the hot drinks and cozy clothes stores love to promote.
While businesses have been prematurely embracing the fall season overall, their handling of Halloween is particularly egregious. Like most other holidays, Halloween feels special because it’s just one day out of the year, but stores stretch that one day from August to November, which gets rid of Halloween’s novelty and fun.
By cashing in on Halloween for months, stores transform the pre-holiday weeks from a fun period of costume planning, pumpkin carving and decor crafting into a series of mundane shopping trips for overpriced candy and cheaply made costumes.
Although Thanksgiving might not receive as much attention as Halloween in the retail sector, stores still advertise and sell Thanksgiving-related items much too early and exploit the holiday for over a month, diluting its fun and value.
Even Black Friday, the supposed holiday invented by retail businesses, isn’t safe from getting stretched out. What was once a single, chaotic day of people scrambling to take advantage of huge discounts is now an entire week where every online retailer is shoving deals in my face.
While I do understand how profitable fall is for businesses, pushing autumn forward and stretching its holidays for months gets rid of what makes the season so special. The endless bombardment of seasonal items drains the fun out of fall and converts it into a dull, commercialized time of year.
Retail chains extending autumn out also creates a noticeable disconnect between their version of the season and the real one. It feels strange to have Halloween or Thanksgiving come around when they’re supposed to when the early merchandise and constant ads from businesses have made it feel like that time of the year for the last two or three months.
Instead of bumping up fall and snuffing out summer, stores should let summer run its course and put up fall items when autumn actually begins. and people should just hold off on the fall frenzy for a few weeks and just live in the moment.