Seasons.

October 16. You think the season is autumn.

But really... Christmasssstiiiiiiime is heeeeeeeerrre.....

In your mailbox!

In Home Depot!

At Walt Disney World!

I suppose there's no point in fighting it, although I would like them to wait until Halloween at least. Thanksgiving is pretty much a lost cause at this point, just a high-caloric speed bump on the road to the big wahoo on December 25.

I understand that people have to plan for the largest celebration of the year. If you're going to take the kids to Disney, for example, you have only a couple of weeks to figure out how to break into a bank vault or successfully counterfeit $100 bills. In addition to the catalogs shown, my wife gets a lot of craft catalogs, like from Michaels and JoAnn Fabric and Hobby Lobby and Yarn Bomb Monthly and Cross Stitch Hell and God knows what else. Of course, those outfits started with Christmas catalogs in June, but it takes a lot of time to knit that festive '69 Firebird cozy for Cousin Earl.

As I write this is, it is 70 days until Christmas. (That's 10 weeks, 1,680 hours, or 19.18% of 2017, according to TimeAndDate.com, for those of you playing Calendar Bingo at home.) For perspective, 70 days ago was August 7, which to my mind was pretty much yesterday. On August 7 I was complaining about bugs, as I was last Saturday, so it doesn't seem like much has changed. Therefore, Christmas will be upon us before you can take your next breath.

I guess what I mean to say is, tempus really fugits, especially when it comes to Christmas. Consider this your first warning.