In the United States, Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November—this year, on November 28th and it has already been celebrated in Canada, on the second Monday in October the 14th this year.  

Turkey has become the traditional choice for Americans after Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. It was part of Christmas history as far back as the 16th century, and popular history tells of King Henry VIII being the first English monarch to have turkey for Christmas. The 16th century farmer Thomas Tusser noted that by 1573 turkeys were commonly served at English Christmas dinners. Although these were feasts for the rich, royalty and landed gentry.  Even though turkeys are much more affordable today, they still remain a celebratory symbol of bounty. In fact, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin ate roast turkey in foil packets for their first meal on the Moon.  

November seems to now have become the launchpad for the #ChristmasCountdown as #BlackFriday has now become a fortnight of sales in the run up to the last Friday in November and the media has started to hit the consumer with a plethora of enticing advertisements all designed to encourage the consumer to part with their hard earned cash.   It's a commonly held belief that Christmas makes itself known sooner year on year. But is there any truth to the "Christmas creep"? Here, John Lewis' adverts are widely regarded as the "official beginning" of the Christmas season in the UK. The same Christmas season that, by the way, does not start earlier every year. 

 Since John Lewis' "Sweet Child o' Mine" Christmas ad of 2009, the brand's adverts have come out around the same time of year for the past six years, between the 6th and the 12th of November.  But how often have you seen a box of mince pies in the supermarket in October and we have have only just had Halloween and the Family Circle boxes are on offer at the beginning of November. It's a commonly-held belief that Christmas comes earlier every year, along with all the other once-a-year festivities. Valentine's cards come out as soon as you chuck your Christmas tree into the neighbor's skip; Easter eggs immediately after that; and on and on, until all holidays overlap into one big commercial mess.  

But is there actually any truth in this?  Are people just idealizing a past in which capitalism had less of a stranglehold on society – in which they had less of an understanding of what exactly capitalism was, because they were stupid children – and forgetting that we've been subjected to all of this seasonal bullshit since birth? I try to rationalize it all by working on the premise that these early displays allow some of us to spread our spending wisely in the run up to the 'big day/holiday'.  

Some of the children I work with come from less well off homes and this time of year can be extremely difficult for them as they are bombarded by advertisements for lots of goods, their families will go into debt to get them the 'latest in toy' and others will struggle with just having a Christmas Dinner.  A babysitter that looked after my children was a wise old woman, sadly no longer with us and she attacked the January Sales with gusto, as this was her gathering time for the next Christmas! Now that really is #ChristmasCreep.  

It makes sense; once retailers have stopped offering barbecues and cocktail shakers, the natural progression is to slyly shift towards marketing the warm and cosy, there to ward off the impending dread that comes with only seeing 30 minutes of sunlight a day. But does all that change our behavior as consumers? 

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