Christmas is coming (again) - who wants to buy Christmas stuff in October?
The shops are selling it, but is it selling?
By Ville Seuri
It is raining in Helsinki. A dank October drizzle. People are walking in the gathering darkness with umbrellas up, while the trees have not yet dropped all their leaves.
With the best will and imagination in the world, the atmosphere in the Finnish capital is not exactly full of the Yuletide spirit.
And yet the Christmas knicknacks are already on view in the shops: Advent calendars, chocolate Santas, and Christmas stars - both the kind you hang up and the poinsettia flower variety traditionally found in homes around Christmas.
Who would like to buy them already in October?
The best way to find out what customers want is to go to some stores and ask.
At a supermarket located in the basement of the Sokos department store in Helsinki’s district of Hakaniemi, row upon row of chocolate Santas are standing patiently on a shelf.
And there is a pile of Julia chocolate boxes over there! Julias, with their bright-red foil wrapping, are about as archetypal as you can get on a Christmas coffee-table.
The chocolates have not yet attracted the attention of buyers. A total of 16 Julia boxes are stacked in a pile, containing 12 packets each. Only one packet of the sweets has been taken, from one box.
But surely someone would like to buy glögi, the Finnish version of mulled wine?
Ten varieties of mulled wine* have been stacked up in piles at one end of a shelf offering various juices.
The photographer and I were waiting for 15 minutes for somebody to come and buy glögi, but none of those dozens of people going past the shelf stopped and grabbed any.
If nowhere else, one should find early Christmas shoppers at a Tiimari store. After all, Tiimari is the most successful chain of shops selling kitsch and knicknacks in the entire country.
At Tiimari’s Kaivopiha store in downtown Helsinki, Christmas decorations have recently been put on display.
However, nobody can be seen comparing Santa costumes or buying Christmas cards
Instead, customers are interested in pointy witch’s hats, plastic skeletons, and vampire teeth, as Halloween will be here soon.
The search drew a blank even at the Stockmann department store, where we were told at the information desk that we were "a little early".
A special Christmas department would be opened around All Saints’ Day. All that one could buy now were a few Christmas stars (the electrical kind), decorative lights, and candlesticks and candelabra.
On the fifth floor, some customers occasionally stopped to have a look at Christmas stars, but apparently nobody was thinking of buying any.
I phoned Maisa Romanainen, the director of Stockmann’s Department Store Division, and asked her whether or not it is true that the Christmas season has started to begin earlier. It certainly feels like that every year.
”Maybe it has, compared with a few decades ago, but in recent years the season has begun at the same time”, Romanainen said.
””When the evenings get darker, we sell some products that are related to the wait for Christmas time. However, the real Christmas season starts in November”, she added.
According to Romanainen, the feeling that the season begins earlier could well be attributable to people buying more Christmas lights and plants.
”That is why those items are put on display at stores more visibly than before”, Romanainen notes.
At last I get it: it is at toy shops that Christmas shopping is started early.
People have to make sure that they do not make mistakes when buying presents for children, which is why they had better study the available assortment very early. Some hot-ticket items also sell out early every year, leading to much family anguish, so those who have been burned once are not keen to make the same mistake again.
The toy shop BR Lelut at Helsinki’s Kamppi Center has already started its Christmas sale.
”Christmas Sale, Save Up To 50%”, says an advertisement placed in the shop window, and the same urgent message is repeated in mobiles hanging from the ceiling above a shelf full of merchandise.
One of the customers, Heidi Mehtälä, is standing by the discount shelf. She has come to buy a present for her one-year-old daughter Miia.
”Miia already has a play kitchen and now I’m trying to find a babycare table or a pushchair for her doll”, Mehtälä says.
However, even though Mehtälä is already doing Christmas shopping, she is not willing to wish anyone Merry Christmas as yet.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.10.2009
Note: In this case, glögi basically means spiced-up berry juice, to which one can add red wine and perhaps a little bit of something stronger to stiffen it up. The real mulled wines are on sale in the Alko liquor stores.
VILLE SEURI / Helsingin Sanomat
ville.seuri@hs.fi
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| 27.10.2009 - THIS WEEK |
 Christmas is coming (again) - who wants to buy Christmas stuff in October? |
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