It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....but is it too soon?  We've seen decorations in stores since Halloween.  Are you down with that?  Me, I'm a Halloween AND Christmas decorating NUT.  I mean, I love my Halloween decorations, but I go all "Martha Stewart meets Better Homes & Gardens" when it comes to Christmas.  EVERY room is flipped.  I have Christmas bedspreads.  I HAVE 3 TREES!  (It's a sickness.  I know.)  THAT BEING SAID...I personally don't put up my Christmas stuff until the weekend AFTER Thanksgiving Day.

See, Thanksgiving is special in it's own right to me.  Growing up in Evansville in a Shriner family, we spent Thanksgiving Weekend at Robert's Stadium, volunteering for and watching the Annual Hadi Shrine Circus.  Not your standard holiday fare, but normal for us.  We'd have dinner with Grandma, then head to the Stadium for the first show.  I still associate the smell of stadium popcorn with Thanksgiving more than turkey & dressing.   

But maybe, with growing distance between family members, less vacation time (and travel funds) available, and the ease of electronic family gatherings (hello, picture share and Skype!), Thanksgiving is the odd-man out of the fall/winter holidays.  Are we collectively losing those strong emotional ties to Grandma's stuffing & punkin pie?  Is that why we're increasingly OK with phasing it out of the commercial landscape?  Is it the drive for that all mighty dollar?  Or is it just plain ol' bad marketing for Tom Turkey & his Plymouth Rock band?

Thoughts?