Samantha Hedin/ Winonan

Many students may walk into a Target or Walmart to find Christmas decorations being displayed before Thanksgiving, when fall is not yet over.

Michael Chounard, a junior at Southeast Technical College, knows exactly what it is like to experience Christmas before Dec. 25.

Chounard, an employee at The Dollar Tree in Winona, said he has been preparing for Christmas for nearly a month now. He said he believes the primary reason for the early arrival of Christmas decorations is for the sake of the business.

“It not only gives people more time to plan ahead with decorating for Christmas, but it also gives them tons of time to buy more,” Chounard said.

He said he thinks this greatly benefits businesses because so many of them make more money during Christmas than the rest of the year.

Chounard said he is convinced this is because customers are willing to buy Christmas goods early, so businesses will continue to do this.

“Customers are falling for it so early,” Chounard said. “They have so much more time for impulse buying and can convince themselves they need more and more, simply because it is available.”

Despite the early setup, Chounard said he thinks Christmas products are put out too early.

“I’d say an appropriate time to put Christmas decorations up would be starting the day after Thanksgiving,” Chounard said, “but that is just too late for almost all businesses.”

Jordan Bott, a junior at Winona State, said she also believes businesses benefit from this.

Bott is a former employee of Pier 1 Imports and although she said she no longer works there, Bott clearly remembers the chaos accompanying Christmas time.

“Our Christmas stuff took up like half of the store,” Bott said. “There were sparkles everywhere.”

Businesses often have certain goals of how much they need to sell, Bott said.

“We would always have goals on how much we wanted to sell,” Bott said. “During Christmas, we always doubled our goals.”

Bott said businesses might choose to do this because they are hoping to advertise for Black Friday as early as possible, so corporations want to allow people time to decide what they want.