Brown Thomas Has Premature Ejaculation

Christmas comes early at Brown Thomas, a posh Grafton Street store in Dublin.  I was in the store on August 31st and they already they had Christmas trees and decorations out.

Consumers aren't stupid.  We know the game; Christmas is the biggest money-generating season for retailers.  The corporate suits think they can somehow extend the season by starting it earlier.  So every year, we see the decorations come out just a little bit earlier, but it's so transparent.  Consumers know it's just a scheme to weasel more money out of them.  It is off-putting because retailers are so shameless about it.

Seriously.  It's summer.  WTF?

oh boy!  cheap plastic shit from China!

Gosh how quaint, an old-timey market.

The wanks up there in Marketing must have had quite a circle-jerk around the conference room table when they decided this time, Christmas should come in August.

Pardon me, but aren't the Christian holidays just a rip-off of early pagan calendar-based festivals?  Christmas is a re-branding of Yule, the midwinter celebration.  Megalithic people built Stonehenge and Newgrange 5000 years ago so they could tell when the shortest day of the year occurred.  They planned a holiday around it because--let's face it--spending winter in a hut with all your relatives gets old really fast.  My point is, you can't have a MIDWINTER celebration in SUMMER.

Oh, and Brown Thomas, can you please tell me what happened to Halloween?  Shall we be ignoring this non-gift-giving holiday?  Yeah, maybe it's all for the better.  That would just confuse the kids in October.