"O Christmas Tree..." Oh, Shut Up.

On the Sunday after Halloween, as the sun slipped down below the tree line and darkness rose up in its place, I looked out from my third-floor apartment living room window at the street below. And even through the locust trees stripped of their golden foliage by the downpours of October, I could see it: The unmistakable twinkling of lights from a Christmas tree in a first-floor living room window in the apartment building across the street.

I was shocked by this--what, they couldn't wait a full week to put up their Christmas stuff?--but I shouldn't have been. It starts earlier every year, the Holiday Season. This year, I saw Christmas decorations appear in gift shops and drug stores right after they'd taken down their Fourth of July displays. It was dismaying enough to see Halloween fare put in the aisles of grocery stores on hot summer days--wouldn't the cookies in the tins decorated with black cats and Jack O'Lanterns have gone stale by October?--but to see aisles clogged with tinsel and ribbons and wreaths? Too much, I say. Much too much.

I walked to the grocery store today, in spite of sinuses that want little more than for me to lie down for a week or so and do nothing but drain. It was a crisp, clear afternoon. Kids played football and soccer in Horner Park. Couples hurried along Irving Park Road to their warm, waiting homes. And on houses here and there, the remnants of the holiday just passed could still be seen: Cobwebs on bushes; scarecrows along sidewalks beckoning trick-or-treaters to enter, if they dared; Jack O'Lanterns rotting to the point of falling in on themselves.

And this is how it should be. The weeks between Halloween and Thanksgiving should be a time for those who tape colorful caricatures of Pilgrims and turkeys to their front doors to duke it out with those too enraptured with Halloween--or too lazy--to yank the pumpkin and bat window clings down and pack them back in the closet until next October.

But I've always been something of a tight-ass when it comes to Christmas decorations. They shouldn't go up until the day after Thanksgiving, and they shouldn't stay up past the first week in January. Period.

Please don't misunderstand. I love Christmas. Not nearly as much as I love Halloween, but Christmas remains a respectable second. Still. This desire on the parts of some to extend the already lengthy Holiday Season well beyond its natural boundaries is working my nerves more than ever this year. Maybe it's because I'm not in much of a Holiday frame of mind this year, what with America being at war and the economy tanking and many good friends out of work or sick or otherwise frustrated to the Nth. Maybe it's just my natural response to having Christmas shoved down my throat so unnaturally early. Maybe I just have a stick up my ass and it's leaving splinters.

Whatever the case, I'm just not feeling that Holiday cheer yet. Give me time. And several cups of warm, spiced cider. Maybe I'll come around. Or at least be to drunk to notice that I haven't come around. But don't expect me to bring out A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector or The Ventures' Christmas Album or any of my other holiday-themed CDs until after Turkey Day is just a pungent morning-after memory of white meat and stuffing and puck-shaped buns and canned cranberry sauce in my overflowing fridge.

Until then, keep your singing Santas and dancing reindeer and animatronic fur trees and cards discounted to sell out NOW out of my face. And maybe I'll remain civil. Maybe.