Do you hear those sleigh bells ringing and jing ting tingaling too?

No.

That’s probably because jolly ol’ St. Nick hasn’t finished checking his list once, much less twice.

But you’d never know it from the displays found in most stores.

There’s no need to worry though. If you walked down an aisle of your favorite store the day after Halloween and spotted Christmas decorations, you didn’t fall into a candy-induced coma and miss the entire month of November.

The Christmas decorations are just out earlier than they once were.

It seems they come a little earlier each year.

I get it.

Businesses are in business to make money. Yes, I figured that out all on my own.

And like it or not, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ has become big money.

But I wish we could borrow a page from another Nick’s playbook.

A month before Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide faced SEC rival LSU, the defending national champions played Georgia State, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee.

It would have been easy for the Tide to start looking ahead. But Nick and the boys took it one game at a time, and you know what, there was still plenty of build up to the LSU game when it finally rolled around.

I’d like it if we all took it one holiday at a time.

We’re past Halloween, for which I am thankful, and that leads me right into Thanksgiving, which has become the forgotten holiday in a lot of ways.

We go right from fake spider webs and candy corn to fake snow and flying reindeer.

Remember when we used to wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas?

I personally think we need to slow the holiday train down for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that we need to take some time to thankful before get into the holiday giving mode.

So, to all you retailers out there, you can keep your three-foot tall candy cane. I’d rather have a turkey leg.

I’m taking it one holiday at a time.