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SOMERVILLE, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Walk into any local decor store this time of year and it will look like someone went ballistic on the pumpkin guts of a burnt orange piñata. Autumn candles, welcome mats, throw pillows, plates and curtains are just a tiny fraction of the offerings.
But just out of the corner of your eye, you might notice some red, green and sparkle.
Christmas decor is already sneaking into retail stores all around Greater Boston, allegedly fueled by a groundswell of popular interest in decorating for Christmas during the ides of fall.
Walmart confirmed that Christmas decor started arriving in mid-September in some Boston-area stores. A full aisle in the local HomeGoods was dedicated to Christmas decorations. And websites from Target to Michaels and beyond urged shoppers to do things like “Get a holi-DIY head start on decorating!” The phenomenon is called “Christmas creep,” a retail technique that lets store chains capitalize on the holiday shopping season by extending shopping earlier into fall.
Shoppers at Assembly Row in Somerville remained mostly insistent that they wanted a “traditional” holiday shopping season, which starts just after Thanksgiving.
“December first,” said one particularly fiery shopper. “Same goes for Christmas music, December first. I don’t want to hear it outside of December,” he said.
“I was like, ‘we literally just started Halloween season,’” said another, who had seen the Christmas decorations inside HomeGoods.
For the most part, only decor places were serving up early winter holiday consumerism. Food stores like Trader Joe's, Starbucks and Dunkin were all still caught in the thrall of pumpkin spice mania as of early October.
Some retailers that responded to WBZ NewsRadio were vague on whether they were actually seeing an upswing in demand for earlier Christmas items.
Walmart said it wants to "meet demand whenever customers are ready to start shopping for the holidays." HomeGoods said the company was "we’re thrilled to be a resource for those looking to get festive early." Only Michael's could definitively say that demand was ticking up for Christmas items earlier in the season.
WBZ’s Chaiel Schaffel (CSchaffelWBZ) reports:
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