Why Are There so Many Household Products that Are Sold Only Between Thanksgiving and New Year's?

Why is it that there are certain products only available in stores for the four or five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day? I refer not to the ubiquitous Christmas trees and Santa's elves and the pieces of cheap, stale milk chocolate shaped like bells and icicles wrapped in colored foil. I am referring to the Salad Shooters. The George Forman Grills. The Home Carnival Sets, which help us fulfill our lifelong dream of making cotton candy at home. The Super-Duper-Deluxe Hot-Dog Toaster Ovens, which are so designed to not be able to toast anything except hot dogs (who toasts hot dogs, anyway?) The Salad Shooters and the Kyocera Ginsu Knives and the Bamboo Steamers all litter the aisles at Kohl's and Nordstrom's, demanding our attention as they obstruct our path to the things we really want to buy.

I'm a Buddhist, so I care little for the whole concept of Christmas, whether from the religious point of view or the crass commercial point of view. But I can't help but be intrigued by the fact that the success of the small-appliances industry apparently rests entirely upon its ability to create ever-more-outrageous-and-unnecessary kitchen gadgets for us to buy for our most detested "friends", co-workers, and relatives each holiday season.

The small-appliances industry has the gift-as-personal-revenge market cornered. Indeed, it is solely responsible for most of the breaches in etiquette (and resulting destroyed friendships) that erupt during the holiday season. For every Electric Pizza Stone, there is someone who will be "regifted." For every Home Brewmaking Kit, there is someone who will be punished by a public reading of a postmodern novelesque Christmas-card letter that lasts from here to eternity. For every Fondue Pot, there is someone who will be poisoned by spoiled eggnog. Salad Shooters are used not for their original purpose (slicing cucumbers, presumably) but for full tactical assaults on the one cubicle-dweller at your office who forgot he was supposed to play Secret Santa this year.