At the mall on Friday night, I was stopped dead in my tracks upon seeing a fully decorated and lit Christmas tree. I had to do a quick calculation... the last holiday-type thing that we celebrated was my birthday, in late September. I suffered no recent head-trauma that would have left me in a coma-like state for six weeks, passing over Halloween and Thanksgiving, which leads me to the conclusion that Halloween and Thanksgiving have not yet occurred. So why are there Christmas trees in the mall already?

Honestly, AOL isn't any different. We're already featuring a sneak peek at the hottest toys of the upcoming season. You can even shop by age. And while on the one hand, I'm a little peeved we haven't even gotten our Halloween costumes yet, carved, or even bought pumpkins, and it's still 80 freakin' degrees outside which puts me in anything but the holiday spirit, I totally admit, I started looking. It's hard not to get swept up in the frenzy. You want to stay ahead of the game because once they start publicizing the *Super-Hot-Every-Kid-Must-Have-Or-You-Suck-As-A-Parent* toy of the year, you know they will be sold-out within a week.