DES MOINES, Iowa -It’s just one day after Halloween and retailers are already getting their stores ready for the Christmas holiday. The transition from Halloween to Christmas begins in the candy aisle at grocery stores.

Dahl’s store manager, Paul Johnson says, “Usually we mark down the Halloween candy to 50 percent and usually it goes pretty quick.”

He says once the Halloween candy sells out it will restock with hundreds of pounds of Christmas candy. Johnson anticipates the Christmas sweets will hit the shelves in the next couple of days.

However, other stores around the metro have had the Christmas cheer for weeks. Since the beginning of October, Earl May nursery and gardens in West Des Moines have had their Christmas decorations on display.

Mark Toms, the store’s manager, says the early display puts Earl May ahead of the competition and apparently it’s paying off. Christmas tree sales are higher than they were last year at this time.

“It was strange too the folks came in and buying trees already. It was a little bit of a shocker to us but they want to get that right tree and they want to get them before they are sold out.”

Earl may say they will begin selling real Christmas trees by mid – November.