Skipping through the holidays

In this highly commercial world of ours, one complaint I hear very often from people is how, whenever they go shopping, the moment one holiday has passed, already the next one is being marketed. For example, the day after Labor Day, Halloween decorations are suddenly on sale everywhere. The day after Halloween, Thanksgiving decorations are on sale everywhere. The day after Thanksgiving (okay, even well before that!), it's a Christmas extravaganza at every store in town.

Why do I bring this up? No, it's not because the Christmas holiday has passed and it's now the post-holiday return to normalcy. But because this morning I went to Giant to restock my kitchen, and in the checkout line, I was surprised to find a box of Cadbury Eggs out for sale. Just ask my mother, and she'll verify that I've been a Cadbury Egg addict since I was about 5. That said, I grabbed 3 of those luscious chocolate eggs and included them on my grocery bill. But I was surprised nevertheless to find them there, already on sale on this sixth day of January, because Easter isn't for another 3 months yet, and we still have Valentine's Day to get through. Then again, it might just be an isolated case, but I still have to wonder . . . are we seriously becoming too commercialized that we have to start marketing every holiday 3 months in advance? Can't we have a breather in between?