00:00It's the 1st of September, which for some means it's officially autumn.
00:04Crunchy leaves, conkers and Halloween will be here sooner than we know it,
00:09but shops are slowly starting to stock Christmassy items too.
00:14At Time Christmas in Rochester, the festive decor never comes down.
00:19Time Christmas is an all-year-round Christmas shop that is coming up to our very busy season.
00:26It all certainly ramps up now, so literally from September now to December it's crazy.
00:33The busy period is November.
00:35So when is it the right time to start thinking about Christmas?
00:39I spoke to some people in Rochester to find out what they think.
00:43As a business owner I'm thinking about Christmas actually in August,
00:46but as a Christmas purist at home I actually start shopping on the 1st of November.
00:51So I'm a bit of a hypocrite in that respect.
00:53I like to have everything ready, presents, food, all that stuff ready by the 1st of December.
01:01So then I can just relax and enjoy the lead up.
01:05I think it's not before October, so September is definitely too early.
01:09I'm already thinking about it now, but I've got lots to get for.
01:12I'd like to prolong it as long as I can.
01:15Yeah, you just like to prolong the agony.
01:17But for me, because we're busy and I've got so many grandchildren and children,
01:23I just need to really start thinking about it and get it underway really.
01:27But as it turns out, it's not just autumn and winter when people do their Christmas shopping.
01:33People are buying everything all year round, so they're preparing for Christmas.
01:39So the beauty of that is that they can then spend more money over the period.
01:44It's weird selling a penguin in the summer heat maybe.
01:47Selling a reindeer maybe in August is a bit odd.
01:50However, it's more normal to us now because it's what we do.
01:54So as a business owner, when does Tom think is the best time to start thinking about Christmas?
02:01I'd say you need to be doing it in the next couple of months because what will happen is
02:04you won't get the nice things because everyone's already brought them.
02:07So you actually have to start fairly early, believe it or not.
02:11Whether you start early or dash around last minute,
02:14there's still plenty of time before we hit the festive period.
02:18Justine Latter for KMTV in Rochester.
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