When festive shoppers are on the lookout for pumpkins and cornucopias, it is only natural for the shelves to be filled with snow globes and strings of lights. In this spirit, Walmart decided to go not one, but two steps ahead in their preparation for the upcoming holiday season.

Instead of black cats and witch hats, Walmart has prematurely decked the halls with Christmas trees, dreidels and even valentines for those holidays that are just around the corner.

The spooky part of this season is not the ghosts coming out to haunt at night, but the panic of last-minute shoppers not being able to prepare for the upcoming holiday. With the recent shutdown of Spirit Halloween, this poses an especially scary problem for the students, who were planning to rely on Walmart for decorations and costumes.

“I was shocked to see the absence of Halloween costumes and items on the shelves. I was on the lookout for seven costumes for Halloweek,” Jack Lantern ’21, who recently went to Walmart to scope out potential Halloween costumes, said. “But it’s looking like I’ll have to alternate between Santa, a reindeer and an elf.”

Students and residents of Lewisburg hope that the local Walmart will stock up with more Reese’s and Twix, instead of candy canes and Sweethearts. However, this might just be witchful thinking.

Casper G. Host, a Walmart employee, gave his own explanation for the lack of Halloween spirit: “Most people think this was a business move, but in reality, our usual Halloween shipment was mixed in with our Christmas order. That’s why our shelves are filled with wreaths and snowmen, instead of candy.”

Regardless, there seems to be a consensus on an upside to this trend: getting to play holiday music before the calendar hits November.