More thoughts on the retail calendar

Since I started talking about my crusade against the retail calendar (see www.letterwritingcrank.blogspot.com ) a few people have offered possible reasons for the trend-

Many schools in other parts of the country start sooner than they do in the Northeast(where I live). Well, then I would suggest that the stores tailor their mailings geographically. And I bet those kids that do go back to school earlier don't need a month to buy loose leaf paper and pencils.
A woman in my knitting group said that she has to mail her christmas presents around the country so she usually tries to get her shopping done before thanksgiving. She said that the ads are probably geared to people like her. But I have noticed stores putting things out as early as september. Unless your stuff is going to Kashmir I don't know anyone who needs to be done this early. Also, not everyone celebrates christmas, imagine if there were dreidls and menorahs plastered everywhere for months before you saw a christmas tree.

As I have thought about this quite a bit over the past few weeks I think that I have two chief objections:the first is that it gets people to spend more money on crap they don't need(and may not be able to afford) and two it makes us all hyperaware of the passage of time. I'm trying to retrain myself to savor the moment that I'm in rather than constantly looking ahead and then complaining about how fast time flies.