I have always been a traditionalist when it comes to my holidays. I bristle when municipalities decide to hold festivities on whatever day is convenient and not the actual day on the calendar. I’ve made my peace with trick-or-treating on non-Halloween days. It’s not a national holiday (boo) and you do have to take the safety of the kiddos into consideration, however, some places have outlawed trick-or-treating on Halloween if Oct. 31 doesn’t fall on an approved day of the week. Before I digress, this isn’t about Halloween, rather Christmas.

When I was growing up in western New York, you celebrated the four fall/winter holidays in strict order: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve. No advertising, no nothing until the previous was in the books. You got a pass if you were trying to figure out who was hosting dinner for the next one. Halloween was highly anticipated as we decided what costume to wear. It seems I always alternated between Ben Cooper plastic costumes and my father’s homemade creations. As I got older, we went to horror movies at the local Googolplex or stayed home in costume to hand out candy to the younger kids (and scare the bejeezus out of them) and watch scary movies on television.

Once the witching hour passed, we turned our attention to Thanksgiving. The weather turned even colder, that fall chill became a harbinger of winter, and we learned the incorrect history of the pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving while making all kinds of arts and crafts in class, including the ever-popular hand turkey. We looked forward to Thanksgiving dinner at [insert relative’s house], the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade (which has become unwatchable) followed by the traditional football games on TV.

After everyone woke up from tryptophan induced comas, we started to think about Christmas. For 50 years, American children pored over the Sears Wishbook. I had the nerve to give my father an itemized invoice one year. Radio stations started mixing in Christmas tunes, increasing the number and frequency of yuletide classics as the date drew closer. As November turned to December, we all headed to the mall like migrating wildebeest to do our shopping. The malls were nirvana for us kids with the hustle and bustle and animatronic Santa’s workshop displays. We all waited in line to tell St. Nick what we wanted him to leave under the tree we didn’t get until well past Dec. 1. By mid-December, Christmas was everywhere and heralded by television Christmas specials hosted by Bob Hope, Perry Como, Andy Williams et al., and Rankin and Bass’ animated shows.

And then after the ho-ho-hoing and caroling and reveling ended in an avalanche of children’s screams and multi-colored wrapping paper (and exhausted parents), we made resolutions we’d never stick to, and if we hadn’t already, finalized plans for where we’d ring in the new year and with whom.

By Jan. 2 the holiday season was all over and most of us waited until this point to yank our decorations down and chuck out the tree. The bodies of Christmas trees lined the curbs and awaited pick-up.

Everything happened in its proper order until it all changed. It didn’t happen all at once. Oh no. It was slow, glacial at first, and accelerated as the years went by. It’s all because of the commercialization and consumerism of the Christmas holiday. We want to blame Black Friday, but it goes further back.

According to Coca-Cola.com, in 1931, “Coca‑Cola commissioned illustrator Haddon Sundblom to paint Santa for Christmas advertisements. Those paintings established Santa as a warm, happy character with human features, including rosy cheeks, a white beard, twinkling eyes and laughter lines. Sundblom drew inspiration from an 1822 poem by Clement Clark Moore called ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ — commonly known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.’” Thus began the commercialization of Christmas.

Black Friday, a phrase that dates back to the 1950s, gained momentum in the 1980s and 1990s, as stores introduced us to Doorbuster Deals to get people out of the house after the gluttony of the day before. In 1983, mall and department store Christmas shopping reached its zenith (or its rock bottom depending on your perspective) with the Cabbage Patch doll craze. And then came the internet. Black Friday has become a shopping phenomenon that has spawned Cyber Monday and extends well beyond one day.

None of this would be possible without advertising — television, radio and now online with its tracking technology. And I am convinced that every internet-connected device in my house is listening to us. My wife can’t search for Christmas gifts on Amazon without ads for her searches showing up on my Facebook feed. So much for the surprise. Television advertising for Christmas exploded in the 1950s and 1960s — toy robots, model trains, G.I. Joe and cowboy action figures, galloping hobby horses, creepy life-size dolls (I wonder where they got the idea for M3GAN), rockets and missile bases, and so much more. And for adults? Lucky Strike cigarettes, Gillette razors (some things never change), and of course, a vacuum cleaner for the lady of the house. All pitched by the celebrities of the day.

For several years now, since the advent of Facebook, I have noted posts from friends and family bemoaning how early Christmas decor and decorations hit the shelves at local department and big box stores (most malls are dead now, or on life support), and I myself have made mention on Facebook of how early television advertising begins. I have certainly noticed that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer seems to air earlier and earlier. This year, Hulu has already loaded up a Christmas movie carousel, CBS will air A PAW Patrol Christmas on Friday, Nov. 28, ABC will broadcast Olaf’s Frozen Adventure and Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town on Nov. 30,

Freeform kicks off their Christmas programming on Dec. 1, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Frosty the Snowman air on NBC on Dec. 4, with Rudolph airing on Dec. 5, all in addition to a host of other specials the first week of December.

If memory serves, I have seen a Christmas TV commercial as early as Oct. 1. As a Halloween fanatic, this drives me up a wall every year. And this year, as soon as the clock struck midnight and hit 12:01 a.m. Nov. 1, the flood gates opened. It’s full on Christmas advertising.

I am a SiriusXM subscriber, have been for years, they have already switched over their temporary specialty channels to Christmas programming as of Nov. 4. So you can Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Mariah Carey and Jingle Bell Rock yourself silly for nearly two months.

Admittedly, the past several years I have had trouble getting into the holiday spirit. We relocated from California and left the people we celebrated with behind, my son is older and has outgrown much of it, and we work quite a bit. The weather has wrecked the last two Halloweens. The house we bought is smaller so there isn’t much room for holiday decorations but we do make our way out to the fire pit, drink hot chocolate (extra) and listen to Christmas music via a Bluetooth speaker. And we did have a white Christmas my first winter in Washington.

I try to keep the holiday season in its proper order, I really do. But every year it gets harder and harder with all the “noise, noise, noise.” I swear I’m no Scrooge, I love Christmas, but normally I rant and rave and rage post on social media. I am waving the white flag at least for this year. Christmas Creep wins.

Excuse me while I dial in “Holiday Traditions” on my car stereo …

“… It’s the most wonderful time of the year …”