I’ve been hearing the usual comments about how indecent it is that Halloween pumpkins have already been completely replaced with Christmas decorations. The mall and the Superstore are already playing Christmas music exclusively, and the Santa Claus Parade was yesterday.

I’m not complaining, though.

I’m an early shopper. I hate going to the mall in December (we went yesterday afternoon, and already it was crazy crowded and getting parking was like an event on American Gladiators). We no longer travel to see our extended families at Christmastime, so I have to shop for all of them early enough to be able to drop off their gifts on our last autumn visit (which is this coming weekend).

So it’s kind of nice, while I’m out doing my Christmas shopping in November, to have a little decor, a little tunage, to get me in the mood. Plus, I love it that so many retailers are having “early shopper sales” this week. Last year, I wrote this whole manifesto about how I was not going to early shop this year, because almost everything I bought in November went on massive sale the week before Christmas. I’m happy to say, though, that I’m actually almost done all my shopping (I KNOW! I am crazy!) and I got almost everything on sale. Maybe the week-before-Christmas sales will be slightly better, but it’s not worth the couple of dollars I’d save for the nutty crowds, and probably everything I wanted that was on sale would be sold out in 30 seconds and then I’d panic because the perfect thing that I’d thought of and wanted desperately was GONE, ALL GONE.

So for my sanity and yours, early shopping is better.

I really like Christmas music, too. I love the pep, love the upbeat pop, love being able to sing along with songs I’ve heard every year for the past 38 years. The day after Christmas, Christmas music already seems trite and silly, and you need to put it away, so why not get it out as early as you can stand it the following year? Play it now, play it often, I say!

At least we have Halloween as a dividing line; although I did see a couple of retailers cheating by bringing out Christmas stuff the week before Halloween, usually we get until October 31 at least to pretend that Christmas isn’t coming. I wonder if it is the same in the States…do stores actually wait until after Thanksgiving to kick off the Christmas season? How do they stand it, only having four weeks of trees and Jingle Bells and visits to Santa?

Those nutty Americans.