Tis the season?

Summer may have just ended, but 34 million Americans have already started their holiday shopping, according to a new report from CreditCards.com.

Getty Images / Yana Paskova
Getty Images / Yana Paskova
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"About a million people have already finished, and that's just crazy early, but it just shows that some people are really willing to get out in the stores really early and get their holiday shopping started," said Matt Schulz, CreditCards.com senior industry analyst.

Most Americans are annoyed by these overachievers, according to Schulz. He said the survey asked respondents what they thought of the statement "It's annoying that the holiday shopping season has gotten earlier."

"Three-fourths of the people we asked said that they did agree with that statement, including 50 percent who strongly agree, so lots of people want stores to hold off on putting those Christmas displays out until at least Halloween is over," said Schulz.

There could be a number of reasons why people like to get a jump start on their holiday shopping.

"I think some people just kind of wear it as a badge of honor that they get their shopping done early. Some people want to be able to actually enjoy the holiday season, so they want to get the shopping out of the way," Schulz said. "Just the fact that mobile shopping and online shopping really does make it easier to get started when the inspiration hits you."

Surprisingly, the results showed many people still do the bulk of their shopping in stores.

"We saw that 58 percent of people still do that, and about 20 percent said that they typically shop online through their computer and about 11 percent said that they prefer their mobile devices. That one is interesting because that number is up from just 7 percent last year and is only going to keep growing as the years go," said Schulz.

Just being in the holiday spirit and seeing all of the things going on in the stores definitely play some role in attracting people, but Schulz also thinks the adrenaline rush of actually buying a physical object in the store is what gets at a person's love of instant gratification in a way that shopping online can't.

"The younger you are the less likely you are to be bothered by stores putting their displays and sales out earlier and earlier. That really could simply be because most of those folks shop online, so they're not in stores as much anyways, so it's just not part of their daily life," said Schulz.

Contact reporter Dianne DeOliveira at Dianne.DeOliveira@townsquaremedia.com.

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