A Suburban Mall Has Christmas Decorations Up On September 8.

I generally dislike the people who complain about Christmas coming earlier and earlier each year. Not in this case. Complain away. The above image was taken at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg on September 7th. That's a full 15 and a half WEEKS before Christmas.

I knew Labor Day was the day to stop wearing white pants (not relevant to me) but I had no idea it had become the signal to break out the garland.

There's something called the Pile of Sand Paradox or Sorites Paradox. Imagine you have a pile of sand. You take one grain out and set it aside. Then you take another grain out and set it with the other one. You keep doing this for awhile. The question is when do you get another pile of sand? Is it at 100? If that's the case then what about a pile of 99 grains of sand? If you go alright 99 grains counts as well, then what about a pile of 98 grains of sand? How many grains of sand do you need to get a pile? Get the premise?

This paradox illustrates that very small additions or subtractions can't be felt individually but in a group, it eventually creates something notable. This has been the Christmas creep for the past 20 years.

When is it okay to decorate for Christmas? December 1? Well, what about November 30? That should be alright as well. November 29? You get it.

The answer used to be "Wait till Thanksgiving is over." Then it changed to "Wait till Halloween is over." That was good. Those were concrete dates. Once the Christmas creep made it past Halloween all bets were off. There's no real difference between October 19th and the 18th and Christmas started to run away all the way to September.

I just went a LONG way to explain the Christmas creep. Hope some of it made sense. The solution? Go back to a hard date. I'd prefer Thanksgiving but will accept Halloween. Will this work? No chance. Too much money at stake. Can't wait for the Fourth of July/Christmas sale in 2020.