It’s beginning to feel a lot like…what the hell?  It’s early November and it’s already Christmasey everywhere you go.  Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t have used ‘hell’ in that sentence given I’m talking about Christmas, but what the hell?

I was in the grocery store on the second day of November picking up a few essential items.  I was going about my business when something started nagging at me. I tried to ignore it as I filled my cart but when I couldn’t shake it, I turned with a jerk. Then sticking a finger aside of my nose I said to my husband, “Is that Christmas music?” I looked around and saw shoppers pushing their carts around like nothing was wrong. They were probably buying what they needed to do all their Thanksgiving and Christmas baking and there I was, dumbfounded that I was hearing jingle bells over the loud speaker on the second day of November. Why are we jingling bells just a few days after carving pumpkins?   Jingling and carving aren’t meant to be so close together; you’ll cut your bells.

Later that day I was watching television and saw an ad that said I could enjoy the smell of a new car for the holidays.  I started to wonder who really gets a new car with a big red bow on it from Santa Claus. Does anybody look out the window after hearing the prancing and pawing of each little hoof and see a new car in the driveway? Nobody is that good and let’s face it, November is too late to start trying.  Actually, it’s too late to start earning elf points for most of the items being advertised on November 2^nd as Christmas specials.

What happened that each year we need more time to get into the Christmas spirit or to complete our Christmas shopping?  Oh that’s right, it’s not that we NEED more time, it’s that merchants want us to think we need more time so we’ll spend more money.  So listen up all you merchants. You can play all the music and advertise all the big fancy presents with big red bows that you want.  You can do it as early as you want, in every store that you want, and on every channel store you want.  But I’m not budging…because Christmas is in December.