SIR: So the farcical early start to Christmas Shopping (commencing Sunday October 1) proved to be exactly that - farcical. I am certainly pleased it got a poor response from the public.

It is time the tourism chiefs, shop-owners and whoever else inflicts an immediately and unwelcome Christmas on us at the end of Summer realise we don't want it and we don't need it.

To use the name 'Christmas' to promote shop-owners' greed is bordering on blasphemous.

Keep Christmas in December. There are a lot of us who are sick of the hard sell.

Christmas Day is on December 25 not October 25.

Graham Baxter

Bromwich Street, Bolton

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.