What I don't like about Christmas.

It's the middle of September. This is fine. I like this time of year. What I don't like is the countdown to Christmas. People who know me will know this.

But this is going to cause me a problem soon. I'll come to that in a moment.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't hate Christmas. Far from it! I love Christmas! But the Christmas I like is just one day. The Christmas period I like is the short run-up to it and the continuation into New Year's Day.

The Christmas I don't like is the one that dominates a full third of a year.

Christmas seems to get earlier and earlier with each passing year. Earlier this year, I went for some food at The Harvester in Star City in Birmingham. On the entrance was a sign informing us that Christmas bookings were now being taken. I don't remember when this was but I know it was around a couple of weeks before my birthday because we decided to go somewhere else to eat for my birthday because we'd been here recently.
My birthday is 18th August!!

Someone, somewhere decided that Christmas promotion needed to start over 4 and a half months, and probably nearer or over 5 months before Christmas. Christmas is but one day.

It's a one day religious event in the UK, actually - a Christian-appropriated pagan celebration. I've no problems with it being an appropriation. Jesus' birthday is unknown so why not stick the celebration on a date where people are already celebrating. I've no problem with non-religious people getting involved. Religious celebration passes into tradition and each celebrates in their own way. Those who want to be religious about it do, those who don't don't. The tradition of gift giving is lovely. But it has become such a feeding frenzy for anyone with any product, service, or message to sell and the sheer force of consumerism that rears up like a tidal wave before December 25th is just nasty.

Can you imagine if I started getting excited about my birthday, another event that is so common as to happen every year, 4 and a half months before it happened? If halfway through March I started telling people on a daily basis what I wanted for my birthday. If I started demanding that they buy me cards 4 and a half months before my birthday. If every single day for 4 and a half months, I reminded people that my birthday was only a few weeks away.

Pretty obnoxious isn't it? Pretty obnoxious to be demanding people buy me stuff in the first place, let alone to constantly bring it up for months. Which is how I feel about Christmas. It's gotten obnoxious.

I know Christmas exists and I know it's coming. Cripes, I know it's coming! I don't need constant telling. I know that the tradition is to give gifts and celebrate. I'm hardly going to forget. So I would love for marketers and businesses everywhere to just STOP! Stop harassing me into buying things. Stop taking what should feel like a special annual occasion, and diluting its specialness by spreading it out over more than a full third of a year until it is everyday and tired come December 25th.
We are told for 4 months solid that we have to BUY ALL THE THINGS or we've ruined the magic and killed Santa and made children cry and broken family values and kicked puppies and we're mean old miserly killjoys and I don't like it.

Which puts me in an interesting predicament now. I'm on the other side. No - it's not working for Cadbury World. That their Christmas produce stocks in September, and that it makes up something like 5% of total sales in September annoys me enough already but that is as big companies do.

No, I'm talking about selling cards. I have a small greetings card business now.
Here it is: www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CapnDred . Please - go and have a look. It's only small so I'll wait here until you get back.

It's a little bit steampunk, isn't it? In theory, I'll be selling other illustration based products there but at the moment, it's greetings cards that I'm focusing on.
I started with a Valentines Card this year, and to date also have a birthday card, Father and Mothers' Day cards, a graduation card for sale. The next big greeting card day is Christmas Day (no-one buys Halloween cards, do they?) so I've got a nice long stretch to work on this one or maybe even produce a couple of designs, and not feel pressured by an imminent deadline like I have with the others.
So here I am, thinking about my Christmas produce. In September.
Also, I want to have the card available earlier rather than later because I personally know people who have started buying Christmas stuff already and as it is something I want to make a bit of money at, sense says I should catch all the early buyers I can. What's the point of me bringing the card out in time for those early-birds if I then don't advertise it to them so they know it's there? But if I do that, I become the bit of Christmas I hate.

Earlier advertising leads to people buying earlier which in turn leads to earlier advertising the following year to catch the early shoppers and so on. It self-perpetuates.

I think I'll produce the card. I'll put it in my store. But I won't shout about it throughout the end of summer and all of autumn and the start of winter.
It can be how I feel about Christmas: It's there and if you want to get involved with it in September, you can. But I'm happy with it not being waved and shouted about and pointed at for the next quarter of the year.

It hadn't occurred to me until now that I need to think about how I want to manage this one so I don't hate myself.

-Curt-


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