On Oct. 5, a day barely closer to Halloween than Labor Day, the back corner of Target had an aisle and a half of Christmas things for sale.

Two weeks later, that hadn’t changed, but the other two major stores had surpassed it.

Wal-Mart has already dedicated five aisles to Christmas, in addition to an expanded toy section.

Giant Santas and snowmen stand near the store in front of a storeroom of everything holiday-related.

Kmart has cleared out the garden section for trees — Christmas trees, that is — and all the trimmings that go with them.

Back in September, I had heard from some people that stores in their areas were already trying to make people think holiday thoughts.

I decided to hold off on this column until I saw the trend manifested in Ames.

Holding off, it seems, means mid-October.

It’s still a week before Halloween.

The World Series isn’t over yet.

High school football is still in the regular season.

Political ads are still blanketing the airwaves.

And stores are putting stuff out for Christmas?!

I suppose, like just about everything else commercial, it was inevitable.

The “Six Seasons of Shopping” are beginning to overlap.

The “Six Seasons of Shopping,” for the past 15 years or so, have been well-defined: Back to School (July 5 – Labor Day), Halloween (Labor Day – Oct. 31), Christmas (Nov. 1 – Dec. 24), After-Christmas/Valentine’s Day (Dec. 25 – Feb. 14), Easter/Spring (Feb. 15 – Easter), and Patriotic/Summer (Easter – July 4, including Memorial Day).

It is getting to the point where things like the end of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade are relics of things past.

When Santa Claus came at the end of the parade, it signified the “official” start of the Christmas season.

Nowadays, though, he’s more than 20 days late.

Signifying the day after Thanksgiving as the busiest shopping day remains true — perhaps even more so, if only because the stores have cleared their aisles for red, green and gold weeks beforehand and people already have seen what they are going to get.

A cartoon by Mike Thompson two years ago depicted the trend best: A turkey was plastered against the grille of a speeding semi labeled “Pre-Christmas Hype” driven by Dr. Seuss’ green Christmas villain, subtitled “How the Grinch Stole Thanksgiving.”

The movies aren’t falling behind the trend either.

“The Santa Clause 2” will be released on Nov. 1, ten days earlier than the original opened.

Trailers for a few other holiday movies have also shown up on television because, of course, what’s better for holiday cheer than an animated movie starring Adam Sandler?

Although the truckloads of political ads blanketing the airwaves are intolerable in their own right, it is still possible to get away from them, unless all three TV news broadcasts are showing commercials at the same time.

But Christmas, in terms of persistence and unavoidability, makes the ads look nearly quaint.

It’s enough to make the most passionate consumerist give pause and wonder if maybe it’s gone too far.

For the rest of us, we already know it’s gone too far; we just can’t do anything about it.

It’s time for some revolutionary ideas. Well, maybe not entirely revolutionary, perhaps just sane.

Stores should hold off on putting out all Christmas displays until after Halloween.

Between Halloween and Thanksgiving only a small part of the store, instead of the entire thing, should be filled with decorations, lights and other trimmings.

Redesignate the day after Thanksgiving as the first day of the “season.” Something — anything — needs to be done to stop Christmas from extending its dominion to a quarter of a year.

Having CNN Headline News do a story on Oct. 22 about toys for Dec. 25 is ridiculous.

Remember those Christmas specials where some kid (or red Muppet) wished for Christmas year-round, got his or her wish, and found out that it wasn’t everything he or she thought it would be?

Pushing back the beginning of the hype will only serve the same purpose, and we’ll all get sick of it that much faster.

But then again, it appears it’s never too early to think about Spring Break.

Jeff Morrison

is a junior in journalism

and mass communication and political science from Traer. He is a copy editor at the Daily.