I don't know if anyone else has noticed (and if you shop or listen to the radio, how could you not?), but much of the world has skipped right on past the month of November and jumped right into the Christmas season. I'm actually part of the machine, as a part-time gig at Starbucks forces me to serve people gingerbread and eggnog lattes in red-splendent cups (not that they're not tasty, but still...). And this morning while waiting for my breakfast at the deli in our building, I had to suffer through three songs from Dallas' own Christmas station, 103.7 Lite FM.

Lest you think I'm some sort of Christmas hater, my family and friends will tell you that no one loves the season more than I do. But there's a reason it's called "the season" -- if you just randomly start celebrating whenever you feel like it, you dilute the whole feeling of it. Why does Santa always make his appearance at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? Because it's a symbolic end to the rest of the year and the beginning of the Christmas season.

Ain't nothing I can do about it, I suppose -- just felt like ranting and hoping there were others who felt the same way. "And any jackanapes who thinks else should be boiled in his own pudding!"