By Lee Barnes
lbarnes@salisburypost.com
Not too long ago, the Christmas season started the day after Thanksgiving.
These days, Christmas starts kicking in right after Halloween.
Stroll through the Salisbury Mall, and you’ll hear Christmas music from time to time. Some of the stores already have their Christmas decorations up. The mall itself started getting the Christmas treatment over the weekend.
Christmas music right after Halloween?
“We get our music from 104.7 (WKQC in Charlotte), and they’ve started mixing in Christmas music,” said shopping center manager Steven Keels. “The Christmas mix is heavier on the weekends.”
Keels said that for some businesses, the Christmas season begins “any time after Halloween.”
WKQC’s Web site would lead you to believe that Christmas is in full swing, with a holiday theme and a prominent clock ticking down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until Christmas.
As of today, you have 44 days to get your shopping done.
Buddy Poole, general manager at WSAT Memories 1280, waits a little longer to start his holiday music.
“I love Christmas music, but it’s too early right now to start it,” he said. His station will crank up the holiday hits on Thanksgiving Day.
WordNet WOGR, which has an Urban Gospel format, begins its Christmas programming the day after Thanksgiving.
Some half-dozen stores in downtown Salisbury already have their Christmas decorations in place. Bonus points go to Queen’s gift shop, which has been fully Christmas decorated, inside and out, since Oct. 9. Store workers decorated the upscale shop early for the October Tour, the city’s annual tour of historic properties.
Paul Bernhardt will tell you decorating for Christmas around Halloween is nothing new. The 85-year-old Bernhardt ought to know, since he’s been hanging around the hardware store that bears his name since he was 5 years old and his daddy was running the place.
Bernhardt’s staff put up the store’s Christmas decorations last week, right on the heels of Halloween. Each year, he says, they try to get the decorations in place in time for the Veterans Day parade. This year’s parade is Wednesday.
His windowfront decorations include a motorized organ that his store built in 1957.
Bernhardt says that back in the days of layaway, his store began gearing up for Christmas as early as June or July.
“People started their Christmas shopping pretty early back then,” he said.