Talk about taking Christmas in July a step too far.
U.K. retailer Selfridges has opened its holiday department—with everything from trees to ornaments to stocking stuffers—nearly five months before Santa makes his rounds.
The reindeer might still be on their summer break, but the retail holiday rush uses a different calendar. Adding insult to injury for traditionalists, the store says it will begin selling its festive foods, including fruit cake and eggnog, in August—the earliest it has ever done so.
The store’s London location is already decking the halls, but stores in Manchester and Birmingham will likely follow suit soon, reports The Guardian. The London branch will, at its peak, have over 130,000 holiday-themed items for sale.
Officials at Selfridges say they’re making the unusual move to address demand from tourists, who want to pick up a holiday souvenir while they’re on summer vacation.
“This new extension to our usual offer is addressing this growing demand for convenience—domestic customers who love to Christmas shop very early in the year to get it wrapped and taken off their to-do list,” Eleanor Gregory, Selfridges Christmas and home buyer told The Guardian.
U.S. retailers, while they’re always eager to start the holiday season as early as possible, have historically shown a bit more restraint: It’s usually sometime around Labor Day that the first artificial trees begin appearing in Big Box stores. That may be because just 12% of shoppers surveyed by the National Retail Federation say they do any sort of holiday shopping before September (and just 6.5% do so that month).
