The internet has shaped our lives in more ways than we can count on all of our fingers and toes. It has changed the way that we do things such as ordering online instead of making the trip to the store. This impact has not only had a profound impact on people but it has also greatly affected many stores.

At this time of year, several big holidays roll around with the first being Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, finally rapping up with Christmas and New Year’s Day. Go into any “big box” store now and you will not only see decorations for the upcoming season of Halloween but also for that of Thanksgiving and Christmas. It seems almost irritating how stores put these decorations out at the same time and it creates an atmosphere akin to The Nightmare Before Christmas. But despite potentially being irritating to shoppers, they need to do it.

Going back to the internet shaping how we do things, namely how we buy things in this case, it is not hard to see why they would be forced to insist on all of the holidays starting in October. The logic is that if they extend the period which they sell these products, more people will be exposed to the decorations and thus be more inclined to buy them in person as opposed to ordering everything at last minute online. Both Halloween and Christmas make up the second largest and largest revenue producing holidays for stores and in order to keep their profit margins up it is necessary for them to have products available for a long period of time.

In my opinion, while I understand that stores, in order to be successful, need to keep their profit margins up, I feel as though they should keep the seasons separate. Because the largest shopping day in America is Black Friday in addition to being the official start to the Christmas season, I feel as though stores would not be drastically affected because people mainly start Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving, be it online or in store. I feel that it could also potentially increase revenue because shoppers would be more inclined to go to the store if they did not have seasonal joy crammed down their throat when they are still trying to get over the stress of buying and decorating for the two holidays before.