Cranberries, Christmas, and Costumes?

It seems so early to be reading Christmas stories and researching gift ideas. It's not even Halloween yet! And yet this is what I've been doing this weekend. Am I crazy?

I was incensed last weekend when I took my daughter into Home Depot to return something and they had all the pre-lit artificial Christmas trees already on display, along with the giant inflatables to stick on your lawn so your kids don't have to get cold and wet making real snowmen. Even my daughter was a little shocked, as we hadn't finished her Halloween costume yet.

But working on a magazine that's planning a Holiday Issue, I need to be on top of this Now. I need to be editing these articles, researching the various holiday events around Cape Cod, and writing my articles about environmentally friendly gift ideas Now. And taking photos of cranberries and ornaments, and thinking about the proper way to spell Chanukah. (Hannukah? Hanukkah? Channukah?)

This is what runs through my mind, even as I'm still sewing my daughter's Halloween costume and trying to find the right color green tie so my son can dress up as the Joker from Batman (the scary Heath Ledger one, not the goofy one we remember from our youth.)

I'm busy tracking down recipes from friends and acquaintances, and the people who overhear our conversations at the soccer sidelines or the lobby of the music studio must think we're a little nuts, talking about Thanksgiving pies and Christmas Eve buffets.

On the bright side, since I'm feeling the Christmas spirit a little early, I've already finished a bunch of my gift shopping . (Don't hate me!) My nieces and nephews and cousin's babies are all covered, as are two of my aunts and my Mom. My own kids? What, are you kidding me? Still no clue. (Although Boy #2 broke his bicycle this summer, so that's a no-brainer.)

And we'll be driving down to Virginia again this year to make the annual Plum Pudding trek (another pre-Christmas ritual); the gathering is over the Halloween weekend, so we'll be trick-or-treating in my aunt's beautiful Annandale neighborhood, where I'm assured that tons of candy awaits the well-costumed trick-or-treater. If Miss America and The Joker arrive on your doorstep together with a 6-foot-tall midget standing on a box, I'm probably waiting on the street somewhere in the shadows.

Still mixing Christmas and Halloween; still thinking about the upcoming holiday season.