Today is the first day of fall. Last night, it was still summer. It was also 26 degrees, and a half-inch of snow fell. It was still summer!

Mother Nature, I guess, decided that she wanted to get a jump on the holiday spirit and beat the malls to the Christmas punch. I still think she could have done a better job than snow if she wanted to make a point. After all, I still haven’t figured out what the chains on the tires are for (although I think they use them to ward off the abominable snowman), and the ice scraper doesn’t seem to do its job when I am in the living room burning my old textbooks for warmth.

Every year, it seems that Christmas starts earlier and earlier. First, it was Christmas trees being sold the day after Thanksgiving, along with the mall rush. Then the Christmas decorations started going up in the mall after Halloween, and now Christmas never goes away, always lingering around in a corner or in muted music as you go shopping, like a ghost.

Not anymore. I am bringing it out at the end of September, where it can fester like a boil for a whole extra month. I beat out Hollydays, the mall, everyone. Now, whenever you read this, Christmas will infect your brain like the “two girls, one cup” video, just without the vomiting and nightmares afterward.

I can actually get a permit this year to chop down my own Christmas tree in the national forest. I’m actually considering it, because the only trees with leaves still on them are the pines. Besides, once December 26 rolls around, I can burn the tree for warmth. Not to mention the dogs might appreciate the indoor bathroom for a few months.

Moreover, if a tree can think, I would want it to spend its last days in our log cabin, thinking how my wife and I killed its brethren, skinned them, and piled up their bodies for a shelter. That will teach them to harbor caterpillars in the spring.

I just hope that you burn out on Christmas songs by Columbus Day and resume playing whatever lame music you normally listen to. I hope you start buying crap for me now, so the economy will recover and I can stop hearing how the economy is in the crapper, and I hope you have a great white Christmas where you are required to have chains for your cars, because misery loves company.