Retailers already gearing up for the Christmas holiday season

Retailers are eager to get a jump on the holiday season but not everyone is feeling the Christmas spirit.

On the major holiday list, Thanksgiving, Halloween and Remembrance Day are all still to come before Dec. 25. Despite that, big box stores are wasting no time blowing past them and preparing for the Christmas holiday season.

Stores such as Walmart, Canadian Tire and Dollarama have already begun slowing pushing out there Halloween decorations-despite it only being the first week of October-to make way for their Christmas stock.

Retail Analyst Bruce Winder says even though there is still plenty on the calendar before it, the holiday season is already started.

“You’ve got three major retailers with events,” Winder says in the weeks ahead. “You’ve got Amazon with their Prime Big Deal days dropping next week from the seventh to tenth. You’ve got Walmart with a deal’s day of their own dropping now, and you’ve got Canadian Tire with a two-week event for fall and as you get into stores you start to see the Christmas merchandise sneak in there.”

Winder says retailers have made an effort to extend the holiday season in recent years but notes this year could look a little different.

He says some retail giants are gathering less stock of Christmas décor like artificial trees to make rooms for gifts that are more on the functional side.

“Maybe I know someone’s taking a trip, I might buy them some luggage,” Winder says as an example. “Not super glamorous, right? But it’s something you need.”

Not only is the end of the year the most profitable for most retailers, but there is also the opportunity for seasonal employment given the added traffic in stores.

According to Winder, Amazon will be hiring an additional 7,000 workers for the holiday season, including 40 at its facility in Dartmouth, N.S.

As for when people start to get into the holiday spirit, the answers vary.

“After November 11th, the decorating starts coming out and the tree goes up the beginning of December because it’s a real tree,” one lady told CTV Atlantic, adding she does her Christmas shopping year-round.

“I started celebrating the day after Halloween,” one cruise ship passenger in Saint John said.

“Christmas decorations go up after [American] Thanksgiving, right after Black Friday,” an American ship passenger told CTV Atlantic. “Then we start our shopping, and we usually are done hopefully before Christmas starts.”