Alice, the problem is there are so many season rushers (soccer moms, to wildly generalize) who are eager to do their major gift shopping in October, so they can spend November decorating with the stuff they bought in October and December throwing parties and buying stocking stuffers. Until these idiots stop buying Christmas crap in October, nothing is going to change, no matter how peeved the rest of us get about it.   Right now the merchants have the ideal setup, a long season with various kinds of shoppers, first the eager beavers, then the mainstream, then in the last few days us rational types venture out to buy a few things. They keep refilling the shelves and selling more. Oh, and then the gift-card buyers after the big day. It's like a 9-month baseball season where you get paid by the game!