Don't let anyone tell you that Christmas is more "commercialized" in the United States than anywhere else. If anything, it is more so in the United Kingdom.
Take, for example, the fact that the bakery near my flat put its Christmas lights up in the middle of October. Take, as another example, the fact that an air freshener company has been pushing their Christmas scented sprays (i.e. the smell of a gin-soaked Santa), again, since mid-October. Finally, Woolworths has been bombarding us with their commercials featuring a wolly sheep and some other animal pushing Christmas deals on mobile phones since... that's rights, mid-October.
I know why this is. In the UK they don't really celebrate Halloween. They kind of celebrate it, but it isn't ingrained in their national consciousness the way it is in the United States. Hell, in Detroit, they burn each other's houses for Halloween: that's dedication.
But, since it isn't an important event, it isn't something that is really marketed. There are Halloween sale events, but not like in the US. Because Halloween isn't seen as a consumer bonanza, marketers move straight from their autumn/winter commercials straight to Christmas.
I can't really recall ever seeing a Christmas commercial before Halloween. Halloween is the barrier between autumn sales and Christmas sales. Perhaps Thanksgiving used to be the barrier in olden days or days of yore, but with the rise of Thanksgiving Friday to the most active sales day of the year, stores must advertise well before Thanksgiving begins.
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