It's the thing that makes some shoppers sigh when they head into their local supermarket. Christmas is barely a memory - and then you see Easter eggs on sale in early January.
Easter weekend doesn't fall for another three months - over the weekend of April 7 to April 10 - but it seems it's never too early to start buying the goods. Except, according to one expert, it's actually a trick that makes shoppers feel like their ahead of the game, but ultimately making them spend more.
According to Dr Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, a consumer psychologist from Anglia Ruskin University, this tactic by shops is making people think they're being practical, but they simply end up spending more between now and Easter.
Speaking to the Mirror, she said: "The reason why [supermarkets] do it is that often [the seasonal items] are on special offers. People are then thinking 'ooh but it's cheap now and if I buy them now, I can store them and keep buying things little by little, then I don't have to pay it all out at the point in time when perhaps I need to buy lots of it'.
"That's the reasoning for why they're doing it - in order to get the consumer to think it's practical for them. However, that is not why they're doing it - if you start buying mince pies in October because you want to put them away for December, you think 'ooh I'll have one' and then you have two and then you've eaten them and then you go and buy a new packet.
"Then as it's coming up to the festive period, you'll buy another one. So it's not because the shops want to start Christmas in October or Easter in January, it's just purely to get people to buy more and little by little you'll spend twice as much."
The expert goes on to say that we often feel like we have to keep buying more of these items for ourselves and loved ones as "we've been conditioned for a long time to think that consumption is important" and it's very hard to change that view.
Dr Jansson-Boyd said: "You want to give the people you love as many things as possible to show that you care, because the items are the equivalent of importance and caring. We are conditioned, whether we like it or not, it's just the way life has gone and I think we need to become dematerialised and understand that material possessions are not important."
She added: "What's really tragic in psychology is that there are a lot of studies that show that social experience with others makes us much happier and is better for our mental health, than receiving a gift from someone."
