DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Musical snowmen signify Christmas, but isn't it still summer?

It has become clich & eacute; to write columns about the commercialization of holidays and the merchant push to make holidays come earlier every year, but am I wrong, or is it still September?
I think it's September. It looks like September. A few leaves are starting to fall from the trees. A neighbor's yard is just beginning to be shaded by a canopy of auburn leaves. A shower of acorns beaned me on the head as I worked in the back yard over the weekend. Yeah, I'm sure it's just September.
But Saturday, my husband and I walked into Wal-Mart, that beacon to all other merchants, and the ugliest, near man-size musical snowman danced to a Christmas song! I would like to tell you what carol, or popular holiday song it was dancing to, or if it was inflated or stuffed, but I can't remember. I have blocked it out.
This truly tasteless, horrifying bubble of a Christmas icon would send any right-thinking kid running from the house where it was placed, but to have it announcing the Christmas buying season at Wal-Mart during SUMMER -- yes, SUMMER, my friends -- is about as horrifying as one can get. I almost ran out of the store.
Ruined holidays
Wal-Mart is not an aberration unfortunately. Jo-Ann Fabrics has all its Christmas items on display, too. One might forgive a craft store because it takes months to complete some projects (although many of their Christmas items on sale are not crafts), but what about Lowe's, which had artificial Christmas trees for sale the same day the scary snowman accosted us?
Are we out of our minds?
Do people really buy these things in September? I suppose they must, or why sell them this early?
All the holidays are getting ruined. We've moved Washington and Lincoln's birthday celebrations to a Monday in February, renamed them Presidents Day, and given school kids and government workers the day off.
We've moved Memorial Day from May 30 to the fourth Monday in May.
Columbus Day is the second Monday in October.
The only holiday which is safely secured to its date is Independence Day, and only if we continue to call it the Fourth of July.
And as to Christmas, while it is, for the time being anyway, glued to Dec. 25, who can sustain the holiday spirit -- the enthusiasm of anticipation -- beginning in September?
Shopping excuse
When did Christmas just become an excuse to go on an extended shopping trip? Just think, if we start our Christmas buying season now, we will have three months to buy and buy and buy. That's a heckuva buying frenzy; why that's sort of like bingeing, only instead of a bottle of Jack Daniels, we have a Visa card. We can shop, not only until we drop, but until we are on our knees in the bathroom, hugging the toilet, puking over our excesses.
Nobody needs to shop for Christmas until he wears the magnetic strip off his credit card. For that matter, nobody needs a singing snowman that will cause young children to have nightmares.
Need, need, need? No. Be real. Want, want, want. Still, it's all getting mighty confusing, isn't it? With the constant barrage of commercials and the three-month onslaught of holiday product availability, it becomes tough to discern what we need from what we want, and what we kinda, sorta want, from what we really want.
But, this much I know: I don't need, nor do I want, to see snowmen for sale while acorns are still popping me on the noggin. I would like to enjoy Halloween right now and pumpkin picking and even leaf raking. Then, I would like to think about the pilgrims and the American Indians, perhaps dusting off a Christmas decoration or two just before the stuffing and yams go into the oven.
And then, pull out the artificial Christmas trees and the talking Santa Claus, and the flashing snow icicle Christmas lights, and the gaudy reindeer roof ornament, and put them on display in the stores. Or, you know what -- don't. Wouldn't that be a Christmas to remember?
murphy@vindy.com