What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Call me a traditionalist, but doesn’t something seem just wrong with Christmas cards being sold in August?
XmasCardsInAugust.jpg
Photographed at the Costco in Downtown Vancouver on 2011-08-27

55 Replies to “What’s Wrong With This Picture?”

  1. I get your snow drift. But hey, if there’s demand for Christmas cards early in the year then so be it. Retail stores have limited shelf space, and if they put an item up for sale that doesnt sell well, their inventory turnover drops. If theyre selling well, then there’s no reason to complain.
    Let the market do its job.
    Personally, I buy my Christmas cards for the calendar year in January when theyre dirt cheap.

  2. Oh, few gawd’s sake..
    Everyone knows Christmas cards don’t go on sale until September.

  3. Just global warming alarmists getting in early as they think there will be now snow for Christmas time cards…..

  4. The Sears Christmas Wish Book arrived 2 weeks ago!
    friend of mine in the UK indicated they are selling Christmas decorations, on sale, over there already.
    I ctually take it as a sign things may be worse than we think.
    But time will tell.

  5. I bet most of you aren’t aware that these are cards for Christmas 2012. Ridiculous.

  6. It’s called rushing the season marketeer style.
    It’s all part of rushing out the pathetic bit of season we call summer in these northerly parts, getting our minds focused on a long, cold and snowy winter.

  7. “What’s wrong with this picture?”…
    They should call it Winterfest… Christ is conpicuously absent in those cards….

  8. This is just part of a trend we’ve been seeing more and more of in recent years. Halloween items appear on store shelves in July. Valentine’s cards and candy go on sale in early January. I thought that last year my local mall showed admirable restraint in waiting until after Thanksgiving to put up Christmas decorations.

  9. It may seem wrong but if my wife hasn’t already bought next years stuff on boxing day, then she’d be all over this…

  10. Do what I do. Boycott Christmas. Its awesome.
    Make your presents yourself, don’t go to the stores at all. You’ll have a lot more fun and be a lot less stressed-out (and poor!) by the time December 25 actually gets here. Then buy what you need/want on killer sale after Christmas.
    Shutting off the radio ’round about Halloween helps too. Then you don’t have to put up with Christmas carols for two entire months. Winamp is your friend.
    Part of being a Conservative these days is rebelling against the mainstream crush of crazy. Christmas cards in August is a good reason to quietly not participate in the insanity.
    Vote with your money.

  11. There is not a Christmas card in the picture, merely secular winter scenes. Nothing whatsoever to suggest the Incarnation. Of course, one wouldn’t want to offend secularists, Muslims, and etc..

  12. What’s wrong with this picture?
    I thought it was that Christmas was mentioned at all.
    Why not “Deluxe Snowy Holiday Card Collection”?

  13. Hey, NeilD, I send Christmas cards: long tradition.
    And, larben and SDH, you’re right. These are snowy holiday/season’s greetings cards. The birth of Jesus Christ puts the “Christ” in Christmas — duh. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to find Christmas cards with a religious theme these days.
    Enough, already!

  14. The sign clearly says “DELUXE Christmas Card Collection” so they are intended for the poo as Rose would say.

  15. Probably just a mix-up . . . they were supposed to be cards celebrating the end of Ramadan in Canuckistan.

  16. bluetech, larben, SDH and batb are right. These are nice looking season’s greetings cards, not Christmas cards.
    So Costco is a little early.

  17. we don’t do Christmas anymore anyway as it is too commercialized……..why spend good $$$ on gifts that people don’t need???? that is just crazy….if you want to buy something for your loved one or for yourself, just go and buy it, one does not have to wait until that dreaded Xmas season……I avoid the stores as they have this loud christmas music that after a while drives you just nuts and it is way too loud………..stay home and relax, just much more enjoyable that way

  18. Costco is really behind the times: Hallmark Cards has been putting Christmas ornaments on sale in July for at least a decade. It’s one of the reasons I won’t shop there anymore.

  19. I noticed the decorations in Hallmark last weekend.
    I only buy cards that actually say “merry Christmas” otherwise, yes, they are just holiday cards.
    Happy festivus.

  20. There is only one type of store that has a legitimate reason to sell stuff far in advance of an event and that are craft stores. That makes sense when you realize that there is time required to make your wreaths, table settings and stuff before the event. Christmas cards… not so much time needed unless you take in to account the time needed to make each and every note in the card personalized or unique. Some of us have trouble figuring out what to say to Aunt Flo in a line or two and cover everything since last year.

  21. Not as outrageous as Christmas items but Halloween items including mini chocolate bars are already on sale in Toronto’s drugstore chains.

  22. What’s wrong with that picture is
    1. that there isn’t a muslim in sight protesting this infidel display.
    2. there isn’t a teacher’s union rep there explaining that is not a suggestion that Christmas is just another holiday.
    3. that greeting cards are still allowed in this country where mailing a letter is destroying the planet.
    There is much more wrong, but those are my first three thoughts.

  23. They’re just trying to correct the Christian theft of a Pagan holiday, and celebrate Christmas on a date when he may actually have been born. Really, they should be selling them in june, but at least this is closer to his birthday than december.

  24. @andycanuck “Not as outrageous as Christmas items but Halloween items including mini chocolate bars are already on sale in Toronto’s drugstore chains”.
    Hard to keep up. Just purchased all of the DollarStore’s Valentine (C Bars can get a bit chewy unless fast frozen)St. Patty’s and Canada Day stuff.
    Buggars refused to negotiate below $1.00.

  25. It’s for the children. They’ll never see snow, and since these are just winter scenes from history, does it really matter when they’re sold?

  26. The point of selling the “Season’s Greeting” cards now is that the Winter scenes depicted on the cards may lessen the effect of August heat wave/ global warming induced deaths.
    The POOR,who can’t afford air conditioning, can just sit in their hovels and contemplate the snowy landscapes featured on the cards and feel cool just for a moment.
    Send one out to some POOR person you know right now!

  27. “It’s the economy, stupid”
    Actually Christmas hasn’t been about Christ anyway. It is only an old pagan festival inserting “Baby Jesus” as a token of appreciation instead of some chunk of wood.
    Religious idolatry, to be mean about it. Not to say churches can’t or shouldn’t celebrate, it’s just way overblown and frankly people are to fanatical about a baby in a crib, who grew up and died. yada yada yada

  28. Phantom @8:21 – “Do what I do. Boycott Christmas. Its awesome.
    Make your presents yourself, don’t go to the stores at all.”
    People tell him how nice they are.

  29. “About a month ago Costco had ski jackets on sale in Calgary.”
    -Moosemilk
    Yeh, but it also snowed in July two years ago, in Calgary…

  30. Phantom and gofnut, I don’t think you meant that you actually “boycott Christmas” or “don’t do Christmas.”
    You actually try to honour the true spirit of Christmas by boycotting and not doing all the hype around Christmas.
    That’s what our family does. We try to keep Advent, quietly, not easily done(!), with an Advent Wreath on which we light one candle a week, with Advent prayers, up to Christmas at which time we light the Jesus Candle in the middle.
    We try to play only Advent hymns until Christmas and then celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas (Eve of December 24 till Epiphany on January 6) with Christmas music, good food, good drink, good friends, etc.!
    It’s a much better way to celebrate Jesus’s birth. (Oh, and I buy my Christmas cards for next year on Boxing Day!

  31. “Oh, and I buy my Christmas cards for next year on Boxing Day!”
    I would, but I never plan to live that long. I don’t know for sure yet whether my prognostication for this year was correct; while it’s true that my calculations on this matter have not been correct so far, I believe they are bound to pay off in the end. I buy my calendars in late January. Take that, Heather Reisman’s profit margin!

  32. “Winamp is your friend.”
    What is it? Is it some kind of windows something or other?
    Windows=how many times have you rebooted today?

  33. What!!!BC hasn’t made Christianity an illicit Religion yet?
    Thats the real shock.

  34. Back in the late 90s I wandered into a shopping mall in Sante Fe in early September. One end was packed with Christmas trees and related goodies. I initially assumed the locals were being encouraged to post early for Christmas but elsewhere Halloween and Thanksgiving were to the fore.

  35. Doesn’t seem odd to me, but then again I just spent a day battling cold wind and rain in Edinburgh, and the idea of Summer seems inappropriate. Plus I now understand where the Scottish disposition comes from.

  36. Early? Didn’t you notice those are Season’s Greetings Cards for 2013.
    Christmas cards? Vancouver doesn’t do Babe in a Manger. They only do “Dog in a Manger”.

  37. Why now?
    There is nothing like buying things in August and leaving them in the cupboard for a few months.
    Way to create a stampede of commercialism for people who will still be frazzled because they can’t simplify their lives.
    And it’s Christmas, the birth of Christ, whose birth we celebrate December 25th whether the whiners like it or not. It’s okay to say “Christmas”.

  38. When you consider that Jesus was probably born in late February of 7 B.C., the whole concept is jumping the gun to begin with, so might as well sell those cards early too.

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