Target Promises It Won't Hit Us Over the Head too Early with Christmas This Year

Three weeks ago, toward the beginning of October, my husband and I were on a Costco run and decided that we needed to up our Halloween decoration game this year. We walked over to the seasonal decorations aisle expecting to find some pretty great witches or pumpkins. But to our dismay, there were TWO measly options. What was there instead? CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. You can imagine our horror that 1) we missed out on the Halloween haul and 2) that Costco wanted us to start planning for Christmas already. In the beginning of OCTOBER.

But it’s not just Costco, right? It seems like every store has gone crazy. They roll out the pumpkin spice right after Labor Day, the Halloween stuff right after school starts, and the Christmas stuff before anyone has even gone trick-or-treating. What gives? Luckily, Target — the favorite destination of parents and kids alike — has listened to its customers and won’t be unveiling the Christmas themes until it’s actually closer to Christmas. Crazy, right? But awesome.

A Target spokesperson told Scary Mommy about the change: “As it relates to Thanksgiving, we’ve heard from our guests that they want us to celebrate Thanksgiving before moving into the holidays…So this year, we’ll wait to feature holiday signing at the front entrances of our stores until after Thanksgiving.”

In order to manage your expectations, you should know that holiday merchandise and signage will still be found throughout Target stores beginning in early November. But the front of store signage — the “It’s CHRISTMASTIME!!!” decorations that smack you in the face when you enter any establishment — will be held at bay until after Thanksgiving. Hallelujah!

The retail giant is also changing the way it handles holiday sales this year:

“We offer more sales during the holiday season than we do during any other time of the year and guests will have a number of ways to save at Target throughout the holiday season,” a spokesperson for Target said. “This includes a new sales event we’re introducing this year called Weekend Deals, which begins Nov. 11 and will continue each weekend throughout December. Additional sales will be highlighted in our Weekly Ad and on Cartwheel, where we’ll offer thousands of items on sale throughout the season. This is on top of the thousands of items that are ‘Priced Right Daily’ across our assortment.”

So when the time is right you’ll be able to shop smarter and take advantage of better sales. But until then, you’ll be able to enjoy the rest of October, and much of November, before feeling like it’s time to start stressing about those Christmas decorations and Santa’s wish lists. Target, you rock our world.