This Is Halloween, Nope It's Christmas

    This past weekend, I went on my annual late-summer shopping trip. Yes, it now mid-autumn. I had to delay the trip due to issues that may or may not be happening with my car. No one seems to know exactly what the problems might be. I am not completely sure if there even is a problem.  Anyway, it was a fairly average trip. I had two separate deer sightings, one of which was a young buck who scrambled up a near vertical hillside upon seeing my car. A card and collectibles show was going on.  There was nothing I wanted to see, and the crowds surrounding the tables were packed. The "up" escalator at one store was broken, so I had to climb it to the second floor, only to find that there was nothing there I particularly was looking for. (The "down" escalator was working fine. Still got more of a workout than I was planning on.) I did buy a few things.  Not as much as other trips, but enough to warrant the ride. I also got to see some new decorated houses I hadn't seen yet. On the way back home, I got to see a house that had already put up some Christmas decorations. Now, it was fairly far away from the road, so I can't be positive about what I saw, but the large green wreaths with red bows and a two-dimensional set of white/silver bells with a red ribbon scream Christmas to me. A second house had an inflatable Grinch and some sort of light green small tree beside of it.

    This was the earliest I think I ever saw someone put up fresh Christmas decorations. Sure, some keep some things up year-round, but these houses were new. Some places are still just now putting things out for Halloween.  I mean, the main reason why I make a late-summer shopping trip in the first place is to get the best selection of decorations and treats for Halloween. By having to go a month late, most of the stuff had sold out. The scant decorations left were on clearance. While there were still plenty of bags of candy for trick-or-treating, almost every other type of treat was gone. Meanwhile, the Christmas decorations were in out in full, and the first of the holiday foods were out. Even locally, 'Little Debbie" holiday snack cakes were already out. The main thrust of Christmas treats probably won't be on shelves until after Halloween, but a few are out early. 

    I guess stores bought some of their stuff early due to tariff confusion, but this seems slightly ridiculous. It's not like I even looking for new Halloween decorations. Most of the stuff I use at my store are old and/or free, like a new orange spiderweb basket someone gave the store as part of a promotion. (We got a few treats in the basket as well.) We don't even hand out candy anymore, not since the pandemic. I was already a germaphobe of sorts. I couldn't handle having to wash my hands any more frequently than I did every few batches of treaters. I just want all the preparations for one holiday to be over with before starting to prepare for the next one.