Every year it seems, the weeks at the end of the calendar designated as the “Christmas Season” expand further and further in the direction of the blessed sunny months. Like a plodding, methodical, remorseless, invading imperial army, moving inward slowly and ineluctably toward the capital, grinding up territory with terrifying banality, the expansion of the “Christmas Season” is relentless. I fear it shall not be content until it reaches the holy shrine of Memorial Day, which currently stands as an indefatigable bulwark, ushering in our unofficial beginning of summer, whether it be in long simmering Georgia or resplendently spring-like Wisconsin.
However, it was not always this way. In days of yore, not even the most precocious child dared to speak of it before December, lest they incur the wrath of a Santa Clause who was still more associated with donations to the Salvation Army than frenzied 40% markdowns on 
garish clothing made by exploited Indonesian children; a stern, Teutonic St. Nick who really did keep two lists, who never dreamed of offering punch-card guarantees on the latest electronic do-dads, whose ire manifested itself in the form of coal lumps, who demanded to be placated not only with modesty and obedience but also with offerings of milk and cookies, and who seemed to more closely resemble a red-robed Karl Marx than some jolly, docile servant whose fetching and offering was at the beck and call of screaming, sugar-crazed children.
But that was then. Things were different. During World War II there was rationing. Before that, expectations were understandably minimal as people slogged through during the Great Depression. If Santa showed up at all, you cried tears of joy, stared to the heavens, and thanked him earnestly for that raw wooden block with crudely drawn wheels. My friend Tom, who’s proudly pushing 90, remembers that the most amazing gift he would get each Christmas was an orange. Not an orange iPod, but the actual fruit, which was rare, delicious, and expensive.
And before the Depression? Hell, today’s consumer economy was just a twinkle in the cold, glassy eyes of early ad men. A radio, the size of a small piece of furniture and costing about two-weeks’ salary was the gift of a lifetime during the 1920s. An X-Box and a Droid? You’ve gotta be kidding me, right?
But that was a different era. And after WWII ended, another war began: Charlie Brown’s War against crass commercialism, spiraling consumer debt, and the guilt and shame born of unreasonable expectations. After the war, that’s when it all started to change, when you, me, and that funny bald-headed kid began to face down the Lucy Van Pelts of the world, with their garishly decorated aluminum Christmas trees and their lists of gift demands. When 
pretty paper was no longer something to be cherished, saved, and loving re-used; now it was a sacrificial lamb on the alter of commercialism, to be savagely torn to pieces, casually discarded, and quickly forgotten. That’s when it all began to change. That’s when things started to get out of hand.
First the barrier got pushed back to Thanksgiving weekend, and the late November beachhead had been established. Then the weekend itself eroded, and the Friday after Thanksgiving yielded, in a precursor to the grotesque spectacle that is Black Friday. The dominoes continued to fall, and soon the entire month of November was occupied, marking Halloween as a new Last Stand. And by the 21st century, perhaps even sooner in some quarters, Christmas displays had begun to precede cardboard turkey cut-outs and pre-fabricated children’s costumes in stores.
Something inside you dies the first time you see a box of candy canes sitting on a store aisle with quiet confidence and indiscretion in late October.
I am hardly the first American to observe this trend in yuletide rapacity. Commentators far and wide have bemoaned the ever encroaching harbingers of Noel. Some are aghast at how thoroughly the money-changers have infested the temple. Others snidely mock the swollen ranks of headless-chicken consumers who burn through their 19.8% APR credit cards for 
reasons they can’t cogently explain, and who think Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are teen heart throbs.
But me? I have one primary concern when it comes to Christmas’ ever-expanding calendrical waistline: those damn songs.
More to come on this, but first I’d like to hear your take. Do you relish the ever expanding Christmas season or do you melt before it like a chocolate Santa in the sun?