I heard a radio ad right after Hallowe'en inveighing "Get your holiday shopping done NOW!" Anybody got an earlier infraction to report?

...and as Thanksgiving is now [just about] officially over, lights will go up and Yuletide carols will be trolled, ancient or modern.

Tis a pity, but Tom Lehrer was right: "God rest ye merry merchants, May you make the Yuletide pay..."

There have been Christmas trees for sale at the local grocer's since the day after Thanksgiving. These are cut trees and they are not being kept in water. Assuming that one were to erect one in the living room or parlor now, by the Feast of the Nativity, they would be better called "Instant Fire Starters" than "Christmas Trees." Ho, ho, ho.

My son told a tale today he had heard from a local Volunteer Fireman about a guy who wanted to dispose of his tree after Christmas and decided to burn it in his fireplace. Of course the tree was too big to fit in whole, and he didn't have an axe handy, and so he lit a fire in the fireplace and put the tree on the floor of his living room with the tip in the fire, figuring he would just feed the tree into the fireplace as it burned...

Can you spell "Darwin Award Candidate"?

Seeing all the houses lit up on the island in the Caribbean where I live is rather surreal. Santa looks waaaay too warm dressed as he is, but I don't think Santa in a Speedo would be an improvement The poinsettas look natural, tho'.