Halloween less lively?

I noticed a few houses on my street already had some stuff out this past weekend, which is a good sign. When we first moved in 6 years ago, we were basically the only house on the street that did much of anything, aside from the occasional jack-o-lantern on the porch. Then I started putting my stuff up earlier and earlier in the month, and my Halloween displays started growing, and I think sometimes you end up "shaming" your neighbors into doing a little bit more. I've noticed the same trend with Christmas lights, where you keep trying to one-up your neighbors every year.

One thing that I think is definitely worse this year is "Christmas creep". Or at least it seems like the Halloween stuff gets put out early, and taken down pretty early too. At nearly every store I've been to, Christmas stuff was either already up in late August, or in the case of Target, by the end of September they'd already started reducing the size of the Halloween aisle and have started putting up Christmas decorations right next to it. At Big Lot's, they've had the Christmas stuff up for months, but by the last week or two of September, I noticed they'd already cleared out at least half of their Halloween selection, and a previously full aisle was completely bare last time I was there.

I mean, aren't you supposed to be able to start looking for Halloween stuff in late September/early October? I know people like us basically buy this stuff year-round, but most normal people aren't like that. I can't believe so many stores are already clearing it all out to make room for Christmas lights. I don't want to think about Christmas lights in September.