Friends at work were celebrating the recent arrival of a seasonal pumpkin coffee drink at Starbucks (a pumpkin latte or something along those lines - I'm not a coffee drinker so I ignore that stuff). They were disappointed to discover last week that there is no pumpkin in the drink, it's all spices and fake ingredients.

Shopping fatigue, decoration fatigue, holiday music and programming fatigue - my pushback is to not put up any decorations until a week or so before the holiday, and I take things down before New Year's. For many of us here in the U.S. the season begins when Santa Claus arrives at the end of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.

I do need to get a run on the holiday cards - in theory I mail them in early December - so I don't mind finding card displays out early. This weekend I walked into a US store called "Tuesday Morning" and found some beautiful 3D cards in boxes of 10 to 20 in the range of $5 to $7.

SRS