Costco Fans Are Running To Grab These Gingerbread Ice Cream Sandwiches

They say there are two kinds of people: People who consider ice cream a year-round pleasure, and those who think it's just for summer. Others divide into different categories, like those who love to celebrate the holidays as soon as November 1 hits and others who would rather chill out for a couple of weeks. If you are in both of those first groups, there's a new buzz in town marking the start of the holiday shopping season. More and more retailers are setting up Christmas shop as soon as Halloween decorations are done. Pumpkin spice fades quickly into holiday spice, and as jack-o'-lanterns, witches, and ghosts go into storage, Santa, reindeer, and fake snow come out.

The Christmas retail season has always started early, but it's been creeping up even sooner every year, reports Wirecutter. This time around, it's getting a dramatic boost from retailers concerned about inflation's effects on shopping habits, as well as shoppers trying to purchase gifts before getting slammed with a full-force recession, per Yahoo.

Grocery chains are jumping on the bandwagon, too, getting their speciality holiday items out early to cater to seasonal shoppers looking for food gifts and cozy Christmas treats. Costco, for one, just dropped a frozen treat that's sparked some seriously hot interest.

For a limited time, Costco is doling out winter-themed ice cream sandwiches. What makes them holiday isn't just their shape (though we do think the time is ripe for some penguin ice cream sandwiches). Plus, these ice cream treats don't just look like Christmas, they taste like Christmas.

Costco's new seasonal item is an ice cream sandwich made of gingerbread-flavored cookies enveloping a layer of vanilla ice cream. But they're not just any old gingerbread cookie: These are gingerbread man cookies, complete with a round head, two chunky arms, and two sturdy legs, made by Heavenfull. Instagram fan account @costcohotfinds was pleasantly surprised by their tastiness and size, as that vanilla ice cream is laid on thick between the cookies. Their heavenly flavor came as no surprise to one IG poster, who said they had enjoyed these for years but hadn't seen them in stores for nearly a decade. They were delighted to discover that their lengthy quest had finally found its happy ending. 

Other users tagged their friends and made plans to go grocery shopping. One grateful Costco member said, "Whoever invented these needs to be protected at all costs." True to Costco form, the box contains an ample supply of the frozen confections: a total of 12 individually wrapped gingerbread man sandwiches for $13.49. One for each day of Christmas — if they last that long.