I saw my neighbor hanging Christmas lights this week. Fifty-nine days before Christmas!
A Philadelphia radio station might begin playing Christmas music this week for almost the next two months.
Deck the halls? For goodness sake, Halloween is still waiting on deck, not stepping to the plate until Thursday. It makes a guy almost want to strike out in disbelief.
Today, millions of turkeys gobbling on farms won't be gobbled up for Thanksgiving dinner for another month, yet we're talking Christmas already?
Kmart aired its first holiday commercial of the season in September, more than 100 days before Christmas. For the past month or so, our mailbox has been packed with Christmas fliers and catalogs. With the luxury of next-day delivery, what's the hurry?
The World Series isn't over yet. The NFL season is only half over. Our Halloween candy corn hasn't gone stale yet. The local forecast this week is for temps in the 60's. I'm still wearing shorts. Yet we're talking about Christmas? What's wrong with this picture? (No, not the fact that I'm wearing shorts, wise guy.)
Once upon a time, there existed a magical season called Christmas. It lasted about two weeks, which made it all the more special. By the time the wrapping paper was torn off the Christmas season, autumn leaves had long since fallen. Thanksgiving was a memory, temperatures were numbing fingers and toes, and the sky was cloaked an ominous steel gray.
Back then, Christmas and winter entered the season hand in hand. But as they did, Christmas seemed to come and go in the wink of Santa's eye. Seemed like no sooner did you drag the Christmas tree into the house that you were dragging it out to the curb. Butbecause Christmas was a blur, it wassavored, like the last cherry Lifesaver in the pack.
But now, Christmas has changed from a sprint to a marathon, a reality that's begun running our emotions ragged. When Wal-Mart officially kicked off its Christmas season to announce its layaway program, the calendar showed August.
"Better hurry, shoppers! Christmas is only four months away! And please be sure to check out our great prices on Coppertone products before you leave the store."
This season, the rush to Christmas -------- or the Christmas Creep, as it's commonly called ----- is being blamed on media availability due to the lack of the national political ads that nosed out retailers last fall. How they explain the Creep in non-presidential election years hasn't been explained.
I preferred Christmas as a sprint, not as it is now, rushing toward us on the coattails of Labor Day. But at least one survey shows I'm in the minority. An American Express survey indicates more consumers want to do their holiday shopping earlier. But given the convenience of online shopping, I'd presume consumers would require less time to shop, not more.
On radio station B-101 FM's website, listeners are asked to list not only which Christmas songs they'd like to hear, but when they'd like the marathon to begin : Nov. 1, Nov. 15, Thanksgiving or Dec. 1. If Nov. 1 is chosen, it will be yet another example of what I describe as the "hurrification" of Christmas. It's a date on which we should begin talking turkey, not tinsel.
When it comes to rushing to Christmas, why can't we just ho-ho-hold on a little bit longer?
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