So when is the 2008 Valentines Day candy going to appear? I’m having a hankering for Sweet Tart Hearts and buying over priced flowers, aren’t you?

OK, I’m being a little sarcastic (maybe not about the candy part), but is it just me or are the retailers truly pushing out the various “holiday” merchandise much quicker than before? I began to see “back-to-school” supplies in early July (presumably to make way for the upcoming “seasonal” items), Halloween costumes and candy in late August (at both Target and Wal-Mart) and Christmas merchandise in mid-September (at Target and I’d assume the same at Wal-Mart and other similar retailers). Then in yesterday’s paper I saw Halloween and Christmas items in the Kohl’s ad on the same page. (Apparently fall/harvest/Thanksgiving is all lumped together with Halloween.)

Being a “marketing type” and knowing that Halloween and Christmas merchandise are both huge money makers for retailers, I can understand why you’d want these items in front of customers as long as possible. But it’s a little creepy looking at graveyards, skeletons, zombies, mummies, witches, werewolves, vampires, bats, rats, spiders and disembodied heads in crystal balls while hearing Bing Crosby singing “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” in the background. But maybe it’s just me…