Today is November 3, 2015...barely into the month. Once Halloween was over - and the accompanying mania of all things pumpkin flavored - I noticed that the Christmas movies are starting to run on the cable channels. And two weeks ago...two full weeks before Halloween I was in my favorite plant store/nursery and was bombarded with artificial Christmas trees and all things Christmas related. The temperature outside was well above seventy degrees. I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. And yet there it all stood: Christmas, Christmas, Christmas.

One might surmise that I have a problem with this. And one would be correct. It didn't used to be this way. The Christmas season began the day after Thanksgiving and ended January 2 of the new year. The weekend after Thanksgiving wasn't spent sitting in front of stores in the middle of the night waiting for bargains. It was spent shopping for and decorating the tree. And eating leftovers. In fact, I can't recall when the term "Black Friday" came into existence. As long as the New Year fell on a weekend, we took the second day to dismantle the tree and put things away for next year. If it didn't fall on a weekend, the first full weekend of the new year was used for that. And the season was over.

It was simpler. There was no pressure to find the best deal. People didn't fight in parking lots so as to acquire a position one person closer to the front door of the store. No lotteries for sale items. None of that. And people were much, much less stressed about the holidays.

I see so many commercials that talk about finding the right gift for someone, and how it's so important to make that person happy. Hey...if I buy you a gift and you don't like it, exchange it. You won't hurt my feelings. But I'm not going to lose sleep over whether I bought you the perfect gift either.

Retailers have created this monster. Each upcoming holiday seems to have a two-month lead-in when it comes to buying things. The stores will be putting away the Christmas stuff at the same time they're bringing out the stuff for Valentine's Day. And then two months before Easter, that stuff comes out as the Valentine's Day stuff goes back. It's ridiculous.

I like to think that eventually everything will have started early enough so that it will keep moving earlier and earlier on the calendar and then, for one year, all of the holidays and their "seasons" will end up on the right days. It will take a while and I might not live to see it, but I really hope it happens.