I saw Halloween candy in grocery store today

Geez. Hard to believe that they're trying to push the seasons THAT fast. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ohgeez.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/jpshakehead.gif
BTW this appeared to be fresh stock, not last year's leftovers that they were trying to dump.

I went to the mall a couple of days ago and they already have halloween decorations setup inside. I was like WTF?! I would understand if it was the beggining of October, but we're in August for pete's sake!

Same for Christmas, people put up christmas lights weeks before Thanksgiving.

Yes, I hate this trend, been going on for a few years now. I really hate how marketing and advertising rules our lives. It realy makes it unpleasent.

I've seen Christmas decorations for sale at the end of August, I'll see about this year..

I don't get it, you rush for the holliday, is this going to make you sell more stuff, or just make people sick of it and make the holliday go and pass without remembering because you've stared at the decorations for 2-4 months before the holliday even started and you blocked it out and became numb to it!

Yep, I saw those little bags of ACT II microwave popcorn "handouts" with a Halloween pumpkin on the box. I was like wanting to check my watch or something - did the ole' "double-take" for sure!

I'll be going to Wallgreens and Safeway today for routine shopping, but I'll look for Halloween products.

As for Christmas, it is traditional for me to begin decorating the day after Thanksgiving, primarily because I had to compete with retailers who started earlier than that.

(Edit 1:36pm PDT 08-09-05)
I did not see any Halloween candy or other Halloween decorations.

It's a love/hate thing for me...

While I don't hate seeing seasonal merchandise early, as much as I do inapropriately early seasonal MUSIC (ARRRRGH!) it bothers me too, for all the above stated reasons.

However, I'll bet that most of us have at least one seasonal favorite that's not on the candy rack the rest of the year. That makes it kind of hard for me to completely condemn the practice.

My main weakness? Holiday Reese's Peanut Butter "cups". I don't know if it's the size, or freshness, but the individually wrapped Easter Eggs, Pumpkins, and Christmas trees are way better than the regular cups for some reason. My best guess would be freshness, since the seasonal runs are pretty much garanteed to only be so old...

There's few things more dissapointing than a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup when you open it up, to only find all the grease from the peanut butter has leached into the bottom layer of chocolate, leaving the peanut butter like a poor imitation of sawdust.