Fall, schmall.

Everyone says summer is great, but they can't seem to kick it out the door fast enough after Labor Day. 

Never mind the Halloween candy in July -- that's a lost cause, and I think lost because we just like excuses to buy sacks of little candies and eat them and then have to replace them. The stores would put them out in March if they thought they wouldn't look like they'd been left over since last Halloween. And it's not like little candies in big sacks aren't available year-round. It's just that the variety is better at Halloween, and we can convince ourselves we're being festive! and not gluttons. These are for the kids! Yeah, that bag will have been reduced to a pile of little wrappers and human waste before October even starts. 

Well, today is the first day of fall, and as usual, the stores have been all-out for Halloween for weeks, beyond the candy. Labor Day: School supplies out, Halloween crap in. Like this, at CVS:

I'm calling the exterminator

You're not even trying to not be
a Christmas tree, are you?

The weird thing, my neighbors started following the trend. Usually no one puts out Halloween stuff before October 1 -- maybe a generic scarecrow or something that could be just a general autumn decoration, but "Boo"? Foo.

But one product has already got a jump on Christmas, and it is not whom I'd have expected. Sure, my wife's craft catalogs start with Christmas in spring, but they know people need time to make serious projects. And yeah, I've seen ads for some Christmas events like the Rockefeller Center show in the city and the invitation to waste the holidays and your savings at Disney, but people always plan trips months ahead. But a Christmas-themed cereal box in September?

The answer of course is General Mills' sponsorship with Hallmark Channel, home of a million Christmas movies. My sources tell me that the channel is running 31 new movies this year, starting on October 20, so you'd better believe they're ready for autumn to be on its way and get us thinking Yuletide thoughts. 

As usual, I feel like I just took the tree down. Can we push Christmas off till April 2024? Is that too much to ask? I’m not ready.