Reminder: It's still summer

Globe Santa put in an appearance in last Sunday’s A section.

I remember going to my grandmother's house for Thanksgiving and seeing the Christmas presents wrapped and piled on top of the china cabinet.

Halloween merchandise has been on display in Home Goods since July. Anyone who expresses surprise at this or recites the knee-jerk "it gets earlier and earlier every year" is just plain out of touch. This has been going on for many, many years now. It's merged into a sort of "all one season" situation. To make sure people get the message, the Hallmark Channel runs ads for their holiday movies by showing Jack O'Lanterns with Santa hats on. And don't forget, about two weeks before Christmas the holiday merchandise is strategically withdrawn and tossed onto a "half price" table to make way for Valentine's Day merchandise. Again, it's not new. the first time I saw that was in Filene's at DTX, and how long has that been gone now?