I haven't always felt this way, and I know there are a lot of people who feel that Christmas continues to infiltrate our lives earlier and earlier in the year. A few years ago I used to rally against celebrating anything Christmas-related before Thanksgiving. And I will admit, it was a little over the top to see TV commercials for layaway programs in September, but I understood the point - if you're on a limited budget, you sometimes have to start putting your kids' gifts of layaway four months back.
In recent years, however, I've come to understand it a bit better. From a marketing perspective, the longer holiday items are on the shelves, the more opportunities there are for sales. Plus, most of what is out this early is decorations - lights, lawn ornaments, wreaths, and trees. This makes sense because you (usually) decorate before doing anything else, and if you have a limited budget, it might be easier to buy a few sets of lights and lawn decorations back in October.
Now that Halloween is done with and we've entered October, I consider this the holiday season. I mean, Halloween is a holiday (of sorts) and is the first big one since the summer time. November and December are focused on family and gratitude as we prepare for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I feel that's why I stopped having a grudge against listening to Christmas music before sitting down to that big turkey dinner - by listening to holiday tunes and starting to buy gifts, nobody was forgetting about Thanksgiving. Or at least I wasn't, and that was all that mattered.
Do you get overly excited for the holidays? Did you break out the Christmas music yet?
