[MUSIC PLAYING]
So it is Thanksgiving week for us
here at Idea Channel headquarters, which
means by the time you are seeing this,
we have all probably traveled to our respective hometowns,
we're hanging out with our families,
maybe arguing with some distant relatives
while enjoying various pies of certain kinds.
But there is one thing, actually,
that I wanted to talk about really
briefly during this time of holiday cheer.
And that is this.
So we bought all of this stuff at the local pharmacy
this week.
It's the week before Thanksgiving
that we're shooting this.
Though we could have bought it all roughly a month ago.
And this is an effect of something
that is sometimes referred to as Christmas creep.
I'm going to put these things down.
So the reasons for Christmas creep are many.
But I think it's fair to say that the central one is
economic.
The last quarter of the year is referred to
by a lot of retailers as the golden quarter,
because it's the time of year where they
make the most amount of money.
And so it makes sense that if they can push Christmas
further towards the front of the year, further into fall,
then we will sort of get in this Christmas spirit, where we want
to buy stuff and we want to celebrate things,
and we sort of get loosey goosey with the wallets.
Just ignore that.
It's going to keep happening.
The thing that makes me really curious,
though, is that I have only ever heard people
complain about Christmas creep.
I have only ever heard people say, oh, man, you
know, Christmas getting earlier and earlier every year.
And pretty soon we're going to be
celebrating Christmas in July.
There's never any funny-- I don't
know anyone who walks into a Walgreens and is
like, yay, Christmas decorations in October, this is great.
And so I wonder-- a couple things.
My first question is whether or not
this happens everywhere or if it is
a particularly American thing.
Like, where you live, is there Christmas creep.
Or if you don't celebrate Christmas,
is there a kind of general holiday creep of any kind.
And my second question is, if there
is Christmas or holiday creep where you live, do you like it?
And if so, why?
Because for all the people I've heard complain about it,
it still happens.
So there must be some base level of support.
And I can understand it from both perspectives,
that it's a little weird and maybe uncomfortable to have
this crass commercialization of for a holiday that
is about either faith or being with your family,
and so that can feel kind of weird.
But then if you are able, if you're sort of given permission
to celebrate Christmas or family holidays
earlier than even-- maybe even better, the sooner you
can get into the spirit of being with your family,
decorating the house, all things which can be fun,
or complicated, when commercialism gets involved.
So yeah, I don't know.
Let me know in the comments what you
think about Christmas creep.
And also, Happy Thanksgiving.
We're going to take the next two weeks off,
for the mega holiday one.
So we'll see you in a couple weeks.