Christmas Too Soon

In this era of lurching immediately from one holiday to another–where Halloween bursts onto the scene on the first day of October–I suppose I should not be surprised to learn that, as soon as Halloween passed, one Columbus radio station promptly went forward with all-Christmas-carol programming, commercials with Christmas shopping themes have hit the airwaves, and Great Lakes Christmas Ale is in all the stores already.

In our headlong rush to get to Christmas and holiday sales, we give short shrift to Thanksgiving, that great, truly American holiday. Can we at least fend off the Christmas stuff until after we’ve had our fill of turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie and have given a nod to the Mayflower and the Pilgrims?

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not an anti-Christmas Grinch. In fact, I bought the six-pack of Christmas ale pictured above and enjoyed quaffing some while watching college football yesterday. But I just feel like two months of Christmas songs, Christmas decorations, Christmas commercials, and Christmas TV shows and movies is about one month too much.