Holidays come early

I've often written, cynically, about how the retail world exploits holidays for financial gain. In doing so, I've concluded that in their singleminded pursuit of maximized profits, they have wrung out every last bit of significance from every holiday on the calendar.

I still feel that way, but there's a somewhat more positive flip side...

While walking into the supermarket a few weeks ago, my son and I stopped to admire a bin of giant orange members of the squash family. His face lit up as he talked about how much fun this and other holidays are to him, and how much he enjoys when everyone dresses up, decorates their homes, and generally smiles through what would otherwise be a cold early-autumn day.

Retail madness aside, when a kindergartner is given more time to dream about what will be, it can't be an entirely bad thing to have pumpkins show up when we're still wearing shorts.