Saturday, November 03, 2007

Cognative Dissonance

Yesterday at the local Wal-Mart, Lauren and I were looking at the half-off sale on clearance Halloween items, when the usual ads and music blaring in the background changed suddenly:

Me: "Am I hearing what I think I'm hearing?"

Lauren: "What?"

Me: "Christmas music."

We had already seen the "Christmas section" set-up for the last two weeks where lawn and garden had been, but yesterday was very disconcerting: we'd arrived just in time for Wal-Mart's not-so-subtle move-up of its annual "Black Friday" sale, and the Christmas music was playing over the intercom while we were looking at Halloween costumes on clearance. It's like Thanksgiving had been skipped over entirely.

Maybe it's just me, but is anyone else struck by the "wrongness" of this? It may not come fast enough for you, but isn't it just rushing things a bit to have the decorations up 5 weeks before Thanksgiving and then starting the Christmas rush sale 3 weeks before the normal start day?

Just curious.