Ask Erik: Episode Thirty-Six

Here at Ask Erik we've spent a lot of time reading novels and comic books, playing video games, and watching television and movies in order to amass a deep vault of pop culture knowledge.  While constantly trying to still gather new information, it only seems prudent to share some of what we have learned to help solve some of the world's greatest questions.

If you win money in a lawsuit, do you have to pay taxes on it or does the source of the payment have to compensate by increasing how much they pay to accommodate the taxes?  How many species are left on the planet to be discovered?  Do CD spindles make good bagel holders for transporting?

(Spoiler alert, they do)

Once a week Erik tackles a question asked to him and tries to answer it in a method that handles the topic with the respect and attention it deserves.  Failing that, he'll at least try to make it funny so you don't regret reading it.

To Erik: When is it too soon for stores to start promoting Christmas?

Someone (you know who you are) knows how to get my goat.  Few things annoy me as much as hearing Christmas music when there's still enough time left in the year to celebrate other holidays.  Obviously there are the big ones that sell lots of product, like Halloween.  There are the more national and family-based ones like Thanksgiving.  There's the moments you need to think back and remember those who passed away such as National Pearl Harbor Day or Human Rights Day.  Then there's the holidays I wish would get more attention, because I really want to see Hallmark work out what they're doing with National Take It In The Ear Day. 

Now, as is obvious to anybody who has left their house as the year progresses and manages to have both functional vision and hearing, the Christmas spirit seems to be crawling along earlier and earlier in the holiday season.  Christmas decorations now regularly show up for sale before Thanksgiving.  If you go to a big box store, they have the decorations waiting one row back from the Halloween supplies, silently waiting for the chance to move forward.

For the record, I just don't understand the giant inflatable decorations, or the self-contained giant inflatable snow globes that send large confetti into the air.  You'd think electric bills would be high enough without operating air pumps or leaf blowers all day long.

I'm personally not opposed to hearing Christmas music or seeing decorations in December, though.  I understand that even Valentine's Day tends to get at about a month at the grocery store these days to peddle its memorabilia in the hopes of further commercializing a holiday that should be intimate and special, but that's another Ask Erik.

As for the uncanny valley between Thanksgiving and December, I think that's a lost battle and Christmas has clearly marked that territory as its own.  To be fair, there really aren't any other major holidays to celebrate during that period, unless you're really big on National Square Dance Day.  As for before Thanksgiving...I don't really object as long as people acknowledge that it should be secondary in preparation, not primary.  Thanksgiving should come first in stores, as it really feels like a better fit to the season.

I don't see many stores trying to crank out Christmas before Halloween, if only because it's still a highly commercialized holiday.  People love setting up pumpkins, novelty monsters, and consuming massive amounts of candy, so for the most part I think October's safe.  However, there are exceptions.

The natural foods store Pret a Manger decided to get a little ahead of everybody else by starting to play Christmas carols as of August 16th.  I mean, I get that the only real holidays in September are Labor Day and International Talk Like A Pirate Day, but to write off the whole month for Christmas feels drastic.  I'm not aware of any other businesses taking this model, but it does beg the question "when will the takeover be complete and Christmas will consume the whole year?"

That's a really good question, and for the answer we turn to statistician Mike Nothnagel and his mathematical formula of y = -3x + 6291 (where y is the date decorations appear, in this case -1, and x equals the year).

According to his math, in the year 2099 the next year's Christmas decorations and carols will actually overlap the current year's decorations.

At that point, I can only hope I'm there to see everybody complain about how "they used to at least wait until the previous one" before things went on sale.