A Season Lost

Last Sunday I went to the grocery store with WC. He wanted to do a cooking project and we needed some ingredients. We usually put together a simple desert that he can construct by himself. Now that he's gotten a little older, I wanted him to do something a little more challenging, but that he could still complete successfully. I settled on rice krispie treats which involved mostly melting and stirring. His challenge would be that I would ask him to measure the ingredients- a handy real life application to the math he's learned in school. He wanted to decorate them up for fall and use candy corn. He really just wanted a bag of candy corn and saw an opportunity. But, at the store, down the candy aisle, not a single bag of candy corn could be found. We went to the "seasonal" aisle and we discovered red and green as far as the eye could see. I stood there, dumbfounded, at all the boxes of Christmas candy. Christmas Candy? I still have ten pounds of Halloween candy in the kitchen!  There's a six foot snowman waving at me from aisle 16 and it's 75 degrees outside. Where did Thanksgiving go? Did I miss something? I mean, I have enough trouble keeping up with what day it is. I complain the year is slipping by me, but this is ridiculous. We've gone straight from "give me candy" to "give me toys and candy" without stopping somewhere along the way to be grateful. I suppose that gratitude doesn't sell. But, this girl isn't buying a single Christmas item until after Thanksgiving.
 And in this economy retailers are trying to squeeze every last dime we have out of us-in order to stay afloat. That is every one's goal. While, I will admit that we all need to have enough, business and personal accounts alike. I'm not sure that the idea to start Christmas earlier and earlier every year isn't rooted in greed for some. They make more money if they can convince a population of people that they can buy their way to making a perfect Christmas. And having the perfect Christmas is the key to happiness. Now who wouldn't be happier with a six foot waving snowman?