Ho Ho Ho Hum

If you want to know why anything in the world is done, just follow the money.

I say this because yesterday was exactly three months until Christmas and the stores are now gearing up—if not already at full speed—for the season. The catalogs are rolling in, too. I'm not sure when the first one arrived this year, but last year I made a concerted effort to mark the date we received our first Christmas catalog. It was Sept. 7, right after Labor Day. I decided just for fun (apparently I'm easily amused) to see exactly how many catalogs we would get by Christmas Day, so I placed a basket by the door, and each time one arrived in the mail I tossed it in the basket. We ended up with more than 100. Probably half I had never heard of or asked for.

I can't blame retailers for this, of course. The first rule of any business is to make money; if you don't make money, you're not going to be in business very long. Christmas is not only retailers' most productive season, it's also their most profitable season. The day after Thanksgiving, after all, is known as Black Friday for a reason—that's the day retailers' bottom lines shift from being written in red ink to black ink. So there's really no reason why we should be surprised that they're pushing the season from three weeks before Christmas to three months before Christmas. As I said, just follow the money.

But it seems to me that we're losing something with this. Our innocence, perhaps? Or what's left of it. It used to be that Christmas didn't start until the day after Thanksgiving. There was a determined, set order to the end-of-the-year holidays—Halloween first, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas. There would be an excitement and mad rush for three weeks. It was totally different from the rest of the year, and that made it special. Now that set order is all stirred together. It's stew. Gumbo. Yes, there's still the mob scene on the day after Thanksgiving. But even that is getting lost, as stores are now staying open all night or trying to beat the competition by opening earlier. I know one person who was up and at a particular store last year at 4:00 a.m. And when he got there, there was a line. To me, that's insanity.

That doesn't mean we have to break out the stockings and string lights yet, of course. My wife and I reached a friendly compromise after a series of debates as to when Christmas in our house is allowed to start. I insisted that it couldn't be until after Thanksgiving. She reluctantly agreed, but only if she could set the definition of "after Thanksgiving." I reluctantly agreed. As it turns out, after Thanksgiving starts the exact second the last person steps out the door after Thanksgiving dinner. The football games are still on. I'm packing the refrigerator with leftovers and the dishwasher with plates, and she's hauling up tub after tub of Christmas decorations from the basement. She then stays up all night decorating, and by Friday morning, when others are waiting in line outside department stores, it's full-blown Christmas in our house. By Saturday she's wrapping presents and putting them under the trees (yes, plural, one upstairs and one downstairs) because she's already done most of her shopping—over the course of the last three months.