Holiday Rant

Rant warning. Read no further with sensitive eyes. You have been warned.

So the last two days on my drive to work (only 8 minutes!) I have heard Christmas music on the radio. The first day I was willing to consider it a fluke. The second day, I had no doubt what was going on. What is wrong with this country?!? When I went to Target BEFORE Halloween a few weeks ago, they were putting out Christmas tress, ornaments, etc. When I gave the clerk a hard time about it, she said it's time to start planning for Christmas. WHAT? There are still at least two major holidays between October 18th and December 25th. This angers me on so many levels. At the risk of sounding like a bad Charles Schultz social commentary, I offer the following observation: If we are now at a point where Christmas is not something you celebrate but rather something you begin making preparations for in the middle of October, we have become a flawed society. We are now a people who can take a holiday that should encompass a feeling of connectedness and care and thought about our fellow humankind and turn it into a three month stress-fest. Now I know that there are the obvious observations about consumerism, but for me those aspects pale with the realization that I am now forced to begin freaking out about Christmas before I have even enjoyed eating/stealing my children's Halloween candy spoils after they've gone to bed. Quite frankly, it's enough to make me want to run off into the desert until March. I guess that's not such a great idea either; by the time I got back I would have already missed two months of prime firework buying time before the fourth!