Across the United Kingdom, people are still picking at cold turkey remains, recycling the wrapping paper and recovering from the three-day hangover.
But that won’t stop our great British supermarkets preparing to shove some more commercialised religious fun down our throats.
Just when you think it’s all over for another year, and you start devising ways to shed the holiday pounds, here comes Easter 2018… Before 2017 is even over.
If you think this madness is a damning indictment of our society-wide obsession with consumption, you, my friend, are not alone. Taking to Twitter, Lucy Lawson expressed her shock and horror with numerous emojis.
The offending eggs, including culprits named as the Malteasers MaltEaster mini bunny, the Milkybar Kid and an unidentified yellow gelatine duckie, who were all found lurking in her local Co-operative store on 27 December.
The Easter egg market is so commercialised it even had the Hollywood treatment in Hop:
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As it turns out, the plague of premature supermarket shelf-stocking has spread nationwide. It’s an epidemic.
Fireproof cabbage expressed all our concerns on Reddit after their unseasonal discovery:
I got a tub of Miniature Heroes for Christmas that has cream eggs in. They’re not even egg-shaped, and it’s still December. It feels wrong in every way.
The people of Twitter chimed in:
Philip Joel was among the confused consumers who stumbled upon the unseasonal atrocity.
Speaking to UNILAD he laughed at the outrage, sarcastically adding:
I’m currently still shaking and being held tightly by my mother with the shock of walking into the Truro branch and seeing not only Easter eggs being displayed, but not seeing any Prosecco reduced yet!!
Philip’s tweet has since picked up traction and he joked he is now hoping to become ‘the face of unseasonal Easter eggs’ for the food shop giant – or perhaps a ‘calendar to countdown the days’ until the big event.
Co-op responded to the Twitter barrage (but not Philip’s faux job proposition) saying:
As a convenience retailer, our stores often have limited backroom space which means products go on-shelf when space appears. Sales figures also show that many customers will buy chocolate eggs as soon as they can.
However, Co-op aren’t the only ones supplying the demand from these overly-organised Easter preppers, encouraging the Lidnt Easter bunny to dance on our dead turkey’s grave.
Natalie, from Bedfordshire, posted her friend’s picture on Twitter after he spotted Cadbury’s Caramel, Creme Eggs and Mini Eggs on display at Tesco in Great Suffolk Street, London.
An evidently-irate Natalie complained:
WTAF? January last year was too soon but Boxing Day is bloody ridiculous!! Please can we stop this incessant pushing of the next festival before the current one has even finished?
It’s wrong!! Easter eggs should go out on March 1st!!!!
For some frugal shoppers, the discounted chocolate must be appealing. After all, since Christmas left us all broke, it makes good sense to scrimp on the most important and oldest festival of the Christian Church.
Easter – a holiday now shared among non-denominational communities and religious alike – celebrates the resurrection of Christ between 21 March and 25 April, on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the northern spring equinox.
But four months to plan for the arrival of the Easter bunny seems a little extreme considering the mainstream fictional character is here and gone in a hop, skip and a jump.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.