Ah, yes, the leaves are starting to change — fall is in the air. So one begs the question, why in the world have Christmas decorations been for sale in stores for three weeks now? I declare, it just makes me crazy.

I know it began years ago when stores started putting out Christmas decorations before Thanksgiving, but over the past few years it seems that stores have been pushing up when they put out their Christmas decorations. In my humble opinion, it has just gotten ridiculous.

While in Myrtle Beach, S.C., last week, I went into a Big Lots and the Christmas and Halloween items were staggered every other shelf. So one shelf would be filled with witches and pumpkin decorations and the other shelf would have Santas and reindeer. Needless to say, I didn’t even go over to that area of the store. I saw the calamity from a distance.

I don’t know about you folks, but I don’t have the slightest inclination to buy any sort of Christmas decorations this time of year. It just isn’t right. Not only that, I already have most everything I need to decorate my home for Christmas, so I really don’t need anything at all. Maybe by the time the middle of December rolls around, I might need an extra set of white lights or something, but I really doubt it.

I think merchants are just shooting themselves in the foot by stocking all of their shelves so early. I think the public, in general, is tired of having Christmas displays set up so early, and, quite frankly, I hope many of them are of the same mindset and won’t purchase Christmas items until the appropriate time… let’s say — after Thanksgiving!

About two weeks ago, I was in our local Lowe’s hardware looking for replacement cushions for my patio furniture. I was hoping to get an end-of-season deal, but the prices never really came down. Then I went in there yesterday and that same area was covered, and I mean covered, in Christmas decorations. It smelled of Christmas, and I was about to gag. What I really want to be smelling this time of year is crisp fall air and wood crackling over a nice outdoor fire pit.

I hope you will all join me in not purchasing the prematurely placed Christmas items to show merchants they may want to rethink their policy of putting Christmas items out at the beginning of October. We still have the Autumn Leaves Festival, Halloween and Thanksgiving to celebrate.

The biggest message of all that I would also like to send to merchants is that, it doesn’t matter how many cool Christmas decorations I have, I’m more concerned with the reason for the season, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.

I’ll leave you with one last thought for the day: If there is one thing that I know for sure, I am not going to this year’s Halloween party dressed as Mrs. Claus.

Mondee Tilley is a staff reporter with The Mount Airy News. She can be reached at mtilley@heartlandpublications.com or at 719-1930.