When I was a child, the holidays started on Thanksgiving Day. We watched the Macy’s Day Parade on TV and, the next day, started shopping. It was illegal to shop for the holidays before Thanksgiving! Over the years, the rule about the holidays has relaxed, much like the rule about wearing white after Labor Day. People started shopping all year long, based on the various sales available, for things that would magically appear at holiday-time. Pretty soon the companies got in on the act, and commercials for the holidays started appearing earlier and earlier.

I used to blame the Canadians; they celebrate Thanksgiving on what we here, south of the border, call Columbus Day. The real reason the holidays have been starting earlier and earlier hasn’t a thing to do with the Great White North. The real reason has to do with raw, unfiltered commercialism! Companies have researched the gift buying habits of the American public, and

they’ve figured out that if they can get us to buy stuff all year long, they’ll get more sales. . . and we’ll get more stuff. What we don’t need or want, we’ll pass along to others.

It’s like the old joke about where junk cars come from. They start out as paper clips, of course. They pile up in office desks, replicate, turn into coat hangers, and move to the nation’s closets. After that, they change into unclaimed bicycles, and then into junk cars. Last year’s plastic soda bottle is this year’s must-have item!