Every year, people and stores (the former following the latter like docile sheep) crank out the holiday stuff earlier and earlier. Halloween stuff up in August, Thanksgiving in September…somebody I know saw, no lie, Christmas stuff out last month in one store. And it wasn’t one of those “Year-Round Yuletide” stores, either.
I make myself wait for it all. Christmas stuff isn’t allowed to be displayed in my house until after Thanksgiving (and it must come down at Epiphany, and no later). Thanksgiving is reserved for after Halloween, of course. And Halloween is kept sacrosanct for the month of October.
Then all restraints are removed.
I was never hugely into Halloween until college, when my second freshman roommate (the first was a tragic tale and short-lived, better left untold) was a complete Halloween addict. The day we moved into our dorm room, I found her stringing little flashing pumpkins over her window – in September. They stayed there all year; I grew accustomed to them. When we moved apart after that year, I even sort of missed them.
In my own home, I find myself really enjoying decorating for holidays, and especially for Halloween. It’s just not acceptable, for some reason, to hang shiny purple and gold spiders from your ceiling fans at any other time, and as regrettable a statement as that may make about current societal tastes, it’s refreshing to pry loose the bonds of everyday decorating strictures for one month of the year. 
I do have to restrain myself a smidge at present, what with my children’s reluctance to allow anything over a PG-level of frightening in the house. (Skeletons are okay, as long as they don’t talk; creepy eyeballs may be acceptable, but blood is over the line.) That’s all right; plenty of years to come for me to go all Hellraiser with the dining room.
Gabe is asleep at present, and I’m hoping to have most of our current stash out of boxes and onto the walls by the time he wakes. He should enjoy the switch in mood, I hope! He’s a little confused about why I’m putting up pumpkins and not birthday cakes, though; he knows that his birthday is in October, so if it’s time for Halloween, why are there no party hats?
Uh-oh, I hear him calling. Time to start the magic!
Postscript:
GABE: “It’s like Christmas…with spiders!” 
His perspective is refreshing.
We are crazy about Halloween here too. My husband wants to decorate for Halloween at the end of August. . .part of his desire to send summer and her sweaty temps out the door.
We are decorating here too
Ah, and we saw Christmas stuff out too in September.
IN a store here called Michaels.
I don’t know if this is a national chain. . . it’s a hobby/craft/home decoration store.
Kohl’s already had an entire large corner of the store dedicated to Christmas when I was there in mid-September!
Chiming in with Menard’s. Seems like the Christmas trees go up sometime around Labor Day. And the back wall at the neighborhood Target was displayed with the Christmas animatronic deer and lawn decor, ready to be moved the absolute moment the Halloween costumes and fake pumpkins are reduced to clearance.
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