Christmas has exploded already

Now I know that the UK lacks any major holidays in the latter third of the year. There is the August Bank holiday the end of August, and not much else. They only kind of do Halloween here, and it seems that there isn’t much merchandising for Guy Fawkes Day (I guess there’s not a lot of money to be made marketing effigies to burn). Even so, I was amazed that, by at least the end of September, the major department stores (Harrods, Selfridges, etc.) already had their Christmas shops open! I complain about Christmas getting earlier every year, but this is ridiculous. At least I can choose to ignore these Christmas shops, and wait until the traditional day after Thanksgiving to begin the Christmas madness. But then, my local Boots store has thwarted me of even that. Last Monday I walk in, and they’ve hung Christmas wreaths with blinking lights from the ceiling all over the store. This isn’t a store I can avoid going into regularly. Besides making a handy shortcut to get to the local tube station, it’s also the closest drug store to us, and it seems that all the Boots have done this madness already. Every time I go in, I’m forced to roll my eyes and grimace at the forced Christmas craziness that assaults my eyeballs. The bottom line is, it really is too early for Christmas. It’s not even Halloween yet!