I AM writing in response to your article published in the Evening Telegraph complaining about small and large businesses alike introducing Christmas stock in October.

Surely it is fair to keep up with customer demand.

I am the director of the "almost Christmas" shop that was mentioned in the article and as early on as July-August I had customers requesting various Christmas items.

None of our customers feel obligated to buy any of our stock, a lot enjoy browsing.

The majority of our customers are simply spreading the cost of Christmas.

When you have large families Christmas is an expense and our customers feel if they start early then they have less hassle and expense in the weeks closer to Christmas -- thus leaving time to really enjoy the meaning of Christmas.

It is my opinion that this kind of topic is not news and hardly worth printing -- never mind a full page spread.

With such tragedies that are occurring in the world we live in today it would be much better time spent putting our energies into these matters, rather than begrudging shopkeepers the right to make a living selling the things people actually want to buy.

P WITHINGTON.