Christmas decorations have already started to go up in Scotland, three months before December 25.
It comes after news that Glasgow's iconic Christmas lights switch on and fireworks display have been cancelled, as well as Edinburgh annual Christmas market and other festive events.
Physical distancing guidance and coronavirus fears mean that the christmas light displays, markets and events cannot safely take place - but that doesn't mean the festive cheer has disappeared.
MP Monical Lennon posted a photograph of a brightly decorated house in Hamilton, which she said "brought some early festive cheer" to the area.
Christmas 2020 has arrived in Hamilton ❤️
— Monica Lennon (@MonicaLennon7) October 4, 2020
🎄👏🎅👏🎁👏🌟👏🎁👏🎄👏🎅
We need something to smile about and the Cochran family have certainly brought some early festive cheer to ML3. pic.twitter.com/1Ire6oOiBi
Meanwhile, retail giant John Lewis opened its Christmas shop a full ten days earlier in response to a surge in online searches for festive products.
Could this be online shoppers looking to escape from the drudgery of lockdown restrictions and uncertainty around the festive period?
Nicola Sturgeon warned that the "unpredictable" situation around coronavirus could cause disruption to the festive period.
Quizzed during a coronavirus daily briefing, Ms Sturgeon acknowledged that it is an important time for many people and said that working together to tackle the virus and stop transmission could give families a "greater degree of normality" at Christmas time.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel