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When Christmas Started Creeping

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Atlanta Georgian, Nov. 17, 1913

Christmas starts earlier every year. Or at least it’s seemed that way for a long time. In 1944, the Cincinnati Enquirer warned that “some of us will become so tired of seeing Santa hanging around weeks on end we’ll be taking pot shots at him.” Earlier still, in 1913, the Sioux Falls Argus marveled that “the fourth of July flags and bunting” are barely “taken down before the Christmas holly and mistletoe go up.” And way back in 1883, the Washington Evening Star remarked that “the holiday season of trade seems to begin earlier every year,” with jolly storefronts occupying entire city blocks — weeks before the holiday.1

There’s a term for the Christmas season’s ruthless colonization of time, nudging Thanksgiving aside: “Christmas creep.” And though the term was only coined in the 1980s, the phenomenon itself is much older.2

Initially, that was going to be the thesis of this article. Out of curiosity, I logged onto newspapers.com and plugged in the search terms “Christmas” + “earlier every year.” I was tickled to see that Christmas creep has been around for more than a century. I thought it would be fun to compile a listicle with neat little quotes. The message would be something like: “You think this is new, but it’s not!”

Then, as I was preparing to write, I realized this article has already been written — nearly a decade ago, in Slate, by Paul Collins. With some newspaper quotes and even a couple of cartoons, he demonstrated that Christmas creep has existed since at least the 1880s.3

Well, darn, I thought. But then I actually looked at my research. I printed out every article I had clipped from newspapers.com and then annotated each article with markers, using different colors for different themes I noticed and jotting down my little color code on an index card. Then I regrouped the articles by theme and pieced together a logical way to order the themes. There was definitely something to write here, without just repeating what Collins had written.

To begin with, my dataset is a little different from Paul Collins’s. Collins mainly used newspapers from Chronicling America, a free database hosted by the Library of Congress. I used newspapers.com, a paywalled database, instead, because it has an easier search interface. But it also lets you look at newspapers published after 1926, whereas Chronicling America is limited to papers in the public domain. This allowed me to see that something significant happened to Christmas creep in the 1940s and 1950s. Collins explained why Christmas creep began, but he did not examine the widespread backlash to it, which continues to the present day — because that backlash did not really gather steam until World War II.

Let’s start with the early era of Christmas creep, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Americans acknowledged that the Christmas season was inching up the calendar, but they were not so much complaining about it as they were adjusting to it. They thought it made sense for shops and shoppers alike to start the season earlier: “The old custom of waiting until two or three days before Christmas, when the stores and shops are crowded and bad weather may intervene, has been abandoned.” Stores advised customers to purchase their gifts by December 1, if not earlier, or else the things they wanted might run out. “The early Christmas shopper … gets the prize.”4

Many Americans thought it wasn’t just prudent to shop early and “avoid the eleventh-hour rush”; it was also “considerate.” When everyone waited until mid-December to do their Christmas shopping, the stores were overwhelmed, as were the men and women working at those stores. A Keokuk paper pleaded with readers to sympathize with “the pretty little miss … standing behind the glove counter,” who had to deal with an onslaught of impatient customers “the last few days before Christmas.”5

As Paul Collins’s article explains, extending the Christmas shopping season became a Progressive-era cause. Reformers like Florence Kelley, at the same time they were demanding an eight-hour workday and the abolition of child labor, were also advocating early Christmas shopping. Progressive activists derided the holidays as a season of overwork, when young girls packed perfume past sundown and young boys carried heavy bundles in the snow. Kelley’s organization, the National Consumers’ League, launched a “Shop Early” campaign, urging people to beat the Christmas rush and thereby ease the laborer’s burden. The League distributed “Shop Early” posters to thousands of businesses throughout the 1910s. 6

After a few decades, however, many Americans soured on the extended Christmas season. “Carping” and “muttering” about “rushing the season” were widespread by the late 1940s.7 What provoked this backlash, and why did it gain momentum when it did?

One culprit was Franksgiving. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week, from November 30 to November 23, to prolong the Christmas shopping season and boost retail sales. He did the same in 1940 and 1941. The new, earlier Thanksgiving was derisively called “Franksgiving,” and many states chose to observe the “Republican” Thanksgiving instead.8

A compromise was reached in 1941, when Congress fixed Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. (Beforehand it had traditionally been the last Thursday of November, which made the holiday fall rather late in Novembers with five Thursdays.) But in one sense, the Franksgiving experiment succeeded: the Christmas shopping season was lengthened, permanently. Newspapers noted in November 1942 that consumers were no longer waiting for Thanksgiving to do their Christmas shopping. The taboo against putting out Christmas stock before Thanksgiving had been dispelled.9

Something else happened in 1942 that altered the Christmas shopping experience: millions of Americans were sent overseas to fight in World War II. The Post Office Department instructed civilians that all Christmas mail addressed to soldiers and sailors abroad should be sent between October 1 and November 1. This meant that many Americans started their Christmas shopping in September. And the shopping did not pause after the November 1 deadline. As a St. Louis paper explained, “this first burst of Christmas buying put shoppers in the mood for winding up their annual stint early, now that they had started.”10

The Franksgiving experiment of 1939–41 and the Christmas mail deadlines of World War II combined to deflate Thanksgiving’s traditional role as the “starting post” of the holiday season.11 Not everyone minded. “Everyone enjoys Christmas,” the Orlando Sentinel reasoned, “and whenever you have a good thing, why not make the most of it?” But Christmas creep’s detractors were more vocal than its defenders.12

Des Moines Register, Dec. 19, 1958

One criticism of Christmas creep was that it contributed to the commercialization of Christmas. Why had the shopping season been extended, really, if not for economic profit? As an Illinois paper explained in 1948, “the stores pushing Christmas items have stocked heavily and need plenty of time to sell before the arrival of Santa Claus.” Businesses put out the decorations earlier not to spread cheer but because they needed more time to sell their holiday inventory.13 A Utah paper theorized that “some eager-beaver” somewhere put out his Christmas stock “a bit earlier,” and then “his competition, in self-defense did too,” and “then another eager-beaver — and another.” Christmas creep was the logical result of capitalist competition.14

Some Americans felt that, when businesses started the Christmas season earlier and earlier, no one could enjoy the holiday when it finally came. As H. Earle Garzee wrote to the La Crosse Tribune in 1947, “We see these decorations a month and a half before the holiday arrives and when it does come, we’re so sick and tired of the lights and trimmings, we pay no attention to them, and the whole atmosphere is dull at the time it should be cheerful.” The holiday, having been smothered in “artificial snow” for weeks on end, had no fire left in it by December 25.15

This was particularly worrisome to Christians who feared that the holiday’s original meaning had been lost. An Omaha paper lamented in 1954, “In the hurry, the hawking, the over-sung so-called Christmas songs, everyone forgets that Christmas is the birthday of Christ, the Son of God made man.” The editor compared the storefront Santa to a “pied piper,” shaking his “jingle bells” to lure people inside to “do their Christmas shopping early” — and forget Christ. Religious carols had been supplanted with secular jingles like “White Christmas” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” and many children believed (according to Sarah Pratt, in a letter to the Indianapolis Star) that “it was Santa who was born on Christmas.”16

The Christian defense could, however, be a bit theologically shallow. A 1949 letter to the La Crosse Tribune is worth quoting in full:

The Christmas atmosphere is forced upon us earlier every year. When I was a kid, Christmas was the Joyous Season commemorating the birth of Christ — families gathered in reunion making it a truly great Holiday. Now all it amounts to is Santa Claus spelled $anta — they even call it Xmas taking Christ out of the word. And we’re supposed to be a Christian nation! As Scrooge would say — BAH!17

One gets the sense that the writer cared less about the incarnation of the Son of God than about a Norman Rockwell–esque conception of America as a “Christian” nation. Christmas was supposed to be a time of religious and perhaps cultural homogeneity. The writer did not actually want to strip Christmas down to its religious core; there was still room, after all, for Santa Claus (without the dollar sign) and Ebenezer Scrooge.

This muddled brand of nostalgic Christian nationalism comes through in a 1953 ad from a Tacoma department store, which boasted, “We’re going to be old fashioned and have Thanksgiving first, and we’ll decorate for Christmas afterward … seems just more like Americana and less like propaganda.” There was more than a hint of Cold War paranoia in the fight against Christmas creep.18

But the greatest objection to Christmas creep was not religious. It had, instead, to do with time. Again and again, Americans complained that the extended shopping season was distorting their perception of time. The Christmas season had already swallowed up Thanksgiving — maybe Santa Claus would start arriving “in a sleigh drawn by turkeys.” What would the holiday devour next? Would Christmas drown out “the sound of Halloween revelry”?19 Would Santa “be sliding down the chimney on Labor Day”?20 Or would he “hop out from behind the cloud of smoke” of “the last firecracker from the Fourth of July”?21 An Oakland resident joked that he would become a professional Santa impersonator, since Christmas would soon start at Easter and he would be guaranteed “nine months employment out of the year.” Some wondered if Christmas creep would extend so far back that “the merchants may lap themselves and lose a year’s business.” The expansion of Christmas threatened to annihilate time itself.22

Perhaps the most famous critic of modern Christmas, Charles Schulz, objected to this flattening of time as much as he did to metal Christmas trees and Christmas light contests. In a 1959 Peanuts strip — October 23, to be specific — Charlie Brown can’t find a Halloween mask at the store because “they were busy putting up Christmas decorations!” Even more absurdly, in a 1962 strip (November 30), when Lucy says she’s going to go downtown with her mother “to see all the Christmas decorations,” Charlie Brown tells her, “You’re too late … They’re starting to put things up for Easter!”

This objection may seem trivial compared to fears of commercialization and secularization, but I don’t think it is. As capitalism runs out of land to exploit, it turns around and starts to colonize our attention instead — our time. It is reasonable to be worried about this. The profits cannot expand forever. We are, ultimately, creatures of seasons.

It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown (1974)

  1. Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 18, 1944; Sioux Falls (SD) Argus, Nov. 29, 1913; Washington (DC) Evening Star, Dec. 12, 1883.
  2. “Words We’re Watching: ‘Christmas creep,’” Merriam-Webster, accessed Nov. 7, 2022.
  3. Paul Collins, “Christmas Season Starts Earlier Every Year!,” Slate, Nov. 6, 2013.
  4. Washington (DC) Evening Star, Dec. 12, 1883 (first quotation); Atlanta Georgian, Nov. 17, 1913; “Prepare Your Lists,” Chippewa Falls (WI) Chippewa Herald-Telegram, Nov. 17, 1915; “Boise Shops Brimming with Yuletide Fancies,” Boise Idaho Daily Statesman, Nov. 20, 1916 (second quotation).
  5. ”For the Ladies,” Burlingame (KS) Enterprise, Dec. 8, 1904 (first quotation); “The Christmas Shopping Season Will Start This Morning,” Baltimore Sun, Nov. 18, 1912 (second quotation); “Urge Shoppers to Come Early,” Keokuk (IA) Daily Gate City and Constitution-Democrat, Nov. 26, 1919 (third and fourth quotations).
  6. Collins, “Christmas Season Starts Earlier Every Year!”; Florence Kelley, “The Travesty of Christmas,” Charities, Dec. 5, 1903, pp. 537–40; Gail Cooper, “Love, War, and Chocolate: Gender and the American Candy Industry, 1880–1930,” in Roger Horowitz and Arwen Mohun, eds., His and Hers: Gender, Consumption, and Technology (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998), 86.
  7. “Welcome to Santa!,” Metropolitan Pasadena (CA) Star-News, Nov. 21, 1947 (first quotation); “Not Rushing the Season,” New Brunswick Central News Jersey Home News, Nov. 11, 1956 (second and third quotation). Also see “Christmas Again,” Lancaster (PA) Sunday News, Oct. 31, 1948; and “Do Your Decorating Early,” Lead (SD) Daily Call, Oct. 30, 1953.
  8. Andrew Prokop, “When FDR moved Thanksgiving: the presidential power grab that tore a nation apart,” Vox, Nov. 23, 2016.
  9. “Cushing Is Fast Giving Way to Christmasville,” Cushing (OK) Daily Citizen, Nov. 24, 1939; “Christmas Is Here Now Insofar as the Boys in the Service Abroad Are Concerned,” Paterson (NJ) News, Oct. 10, 1942; “Stores Experience Unprecedented Wave of Early Christmas Shopping,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov. 13, 1942; “Christmas Shopping,” Baltimore Sun, Nov. 14, 1942; Emma R. McCarroll, “Buy the Way,” Lancaster (PA) Sunday News, Nov. 24, 1946.
  10. “Christmas Mail for Members of Armed Forces Abroad,” Postal Bulletin, Aug. 19, 1942; “Christmas Is Here Now Insofar as the Boys in the Service Abroad Are Concerned,” Paterson (NJ) News, Oct. 10, 1942; “Stores Experience Unprecedented Wave of Early Christmas Shopping,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Nov. 13, 1942; “Christmas Shopping,” Baltimore Sun, Nov. 14, 1942.
  11. Lancaster (PA) New Era, Nov. 22, 1947.
  12. “Christmas Season,” Orlando Sentinel, Nov. 25, 1953. Also see “What Do you Think?,” Des Moines Register, Dec. 9, 1958.
  13. “Yule Shopping Season Is Earlier Every Year,” Decatur (IL) Herald, Nov. 17, 1948.
  14. Murray (UT) Eagle, Nov. 17, 1955. Also see “Earlier Every Year,” Omaha Creightonian, Nov. 19, 1954; and E. Mae Hein, “Christmas Is Getting Earlier Every Year,” in “Early Christmas?,” New Philadelphia (OH) Daily Times, Nov. 24, 1954.
  15. H. Earle Garzee in “Public Debate,” La Crosse (WI) Tribune, Nov. 24, 1947 (first quotation); John L. Boatright, “It’s Getting So Christmas Lights Are on in Memphis Year ’Round,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, Sept. 14, 1953 (second quotation). Also see Juanita Korf, “Editorial: Christmas Is on Dec. 25,” Forreston (IL) Journal, Dec. 2, 1954.
  16. “Earlier Every Year,” Omaha Creightonian, Nov. 19, 1954; Sarah S. Pratt, “Christ Mass,” Indianapolis Star, Dec. 12, 1940. Also see John L. Boatright, “It’s Getting So Christmas Lights Are on in Memphis Year ’Round,” Memphis Press-Scimitar, Sept. 14, 1953; and Walter Shotwell, “Which Means More: Presents or Religion?,” Des Moines Register, Dec. 14, 1958.
  17. Letter to the editor from “Hiawatha,” La Crosse (WI) Tribune, Nov. 17, 1949.
  18. Tacoma News-Tribune, Nov. 9, 1953.
  19. “Editorials,” Decatur (IL) Herald, Nov. 29, 1947 (first quotation); “Early Christmas,” Hartford (CT) Courant, Nov. 20, 1948 (second quotation).
  20. Uniontown (PA) Evening Standard, Oct. 30, 1950. Also see “Tales from Hoffman,” Perkasie (PA) Central News-Herald, Sept. 20, 1951; and “While Roamin’ Around,” Plainview (NE) News, Sept. 12, 1956.
  21. “Earlier Every Year,” Omaha Creightonian, Nov. 19, 1954. Also see Tex Reynolds, “Between the Lines,” Racine (WI) Journal-Times, Nov. 19, 1955.
  22. “Seasonal Santa,” Oakland (CA) Tribune, Nov. 14, 1953; Decatur (IL) Herald, Nov. 18, 1948.
Bill Black is a history teacher in Houston and an editor for Contingent. He holds a PhD in history from Rice University, where he studied religion, nationalism, and slavery in the 19th-century Ohio Valley.

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