On Thanksgiving Day 1924, when Santa Claus showed up in Herald Square at the end of the first Macyâ??s Thanksgiving Day Parade, an unwritten agreement was struck between retailers and consumers: Christmas would not come to the stores before Santa did. For years after that first parade, stores waited until the day after Thanksgiving, which was then the last Thursday of the month, to bring out their Christmas decorations, launch their Christmas ad campaigns and remind everyone incessantly that they had so much shopping do to before the big day.
Now it feels like the Christmas shopping season begins earlier and earlier every year, but the pact between stores and their customers used to be taken very seriously by both sides. In 1939, merchants already reeling from the Great Depression were worried that the late date of Thanksgiving that year (November 30th) and the shortened holiday shopping season would sink them. They didnâ??t dare risk the publicâ??s anger by starting their Christmas sales or advertising early, though, so they appealed to the most powerful man in the free world.
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