Editorial: Nightmare before Christmas

Tuesday, Oct. 17, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, even though it isn't yet Halloween.

But take a stroll through almost any drug store, discount department store or grocery store these days, and you'll see the chocolate Santas sitting right next to the bags of Halloween candy. Some stores, seeking to round out the whole holiday mania, manage to wedge a few singing stuffed turkeys and cornucopia-imprinted paper plates among the tree ornaments and monster masks.

But Thanksgiving pretty much gets the bum's rush, now that retailers see the beginning of October as the beginning of the three-month stretch in which they can make up for whatever sales goals they didn't reach during the rest of the year.

Still, this horrific holiday hawking that places reindeer and snowmen next to mummy kits and vials of fake blood can't be totally blamed on the nation's retailers. Americans tend to love the stuff they love to death. Take sports, for example. Baseball, football and basketball all used to have their assigned seasons, too.

Now, thanks to television and fans who can't get enough of their favorite sport, the World Series extends halfway into football season, which overlaps with basketball season. The Super Bowl rolls around less than a month before baseball pitchers show up for spring training, and the NBA playoffs start after baseball's first pitch of the season is thrown. And the National Hockey League season seems to run all year long.

And so we have our Halloween with our Thanksgiving stuffing and Christmas ham. At least when trick-or-treaters ring the doorbell it provides a welcome break from untangling the Christmas lights.