The last week in September, I was in a Rite-Aid drugstore, and was shocked to see Christmas decorations on the shelves. I’ve gotten used to seeing Christmas stuff out in October now, but the holiday commercial creep has now made it to September. I don’t know about you, but I find it incredibly dispiriting.

When I was a kid in the 1970s, our little town didn’t put up its Christmas decorations until the day after Thanksgiving. We lived for that day, us kids, eager for the visible signs that we had entered the holiday season. Last night, my mom told me that when she was a little girl growing up in Woodville, Miss., the merchants downtown would cover their storefront display windows with brown paper on the night before Thanksgiving, and either on that Friday (or maybe Saturday, can’t recall), they would take the paper down to reveal their Christmas displays. Mama said that all the kids couldn’t wait to go downtown and see the signs of Christmas. I can well imagine it, can’t you?

Now there’s nothing all that special about signs of Christmas coming, thanks to the stores. If you’ve been looking at Christmas decorations in the stores since a month before Halloween, by the time you get to mid-December, you’re worn out with it. At least I am. There oughta be a law.