The calendar keeps moving because a commercial format rewards moving it. The all-Christmas radio switch began as a regional experiment in Phoenix in the 1990s, rolled out nationally around 2001, and at first flipped after Thanksgiving; within a few years some stations were flipping in October, because a station that switches first captures the audience that wants it and keeps them for six weeks. Television did the same thing: one cable channel's Christmas block has started on 1 November since 2010. Retail set the pattern earlier still: the phrase Christmas creep dates to the mid-1980s, and by the 2010s major US chains were putting Christmas stock out from 1 September, with one Irish department store opening its Christmas shop in mid-August. Nobody decided this collectively; each individual move was rational and the aggregate is what people object to. The polling shows the public clustering hard on one line (a plurality say after Thanksgiving and the next largest group says the beginning of December), with a small, durable minority at each extreme who want it year-round or never.