I love Christmas music.

I have a Christmas Pandora station I have carefully cultivated over the last few years. Thumbs up to good songs, thumbs down to the ones I don’t like.

The seeds of the station are the Trans Siberian Orchestra, Mannheim Steamrollers and the Neil Diamond Christmas album that was the soundtrack of the season in my family while my sister and me were growing up.

I have a cardinal rule that governs that station though. It cannot be played until Black Friday and then gets turned back off Dec. 26. Despite my love of the station, that is the small window and finite amount of time I play it and blast Christmas tunes through the XM stations in my car.

In the past few years the “Christmas Creep” has become an ever-growing problem. The main Christmas music station on XM went live on Nov. 1, weeks before it should be acceptable to start singing about roasting chestnuts or Santa Claus coming to town.

The Christmas Creep hit me full in the face on Wednesday. Like any decent person with a sweet tooth, Wednesday was a borderline national holiday. The day after Halloween, those big bags of candy are half priced, so I made a trip to Walmart to indulge.

And BAM! Christmas. The pillars in front on the building were now candy canes. Each cash register (including the extra 20 Walmart builds, but never opens) had candy canes hanging on their signs. There was a huge sign in the doorway saying something about rocking your Christmas.

Here I was trying to scavenge for leftover Halloween candy and excited for Thanksgiving, but apparently that transition period just doesn’t exist anymore. Nov. 1 is now the official beginning of the Christmas season I guess.

Time to get out the artificial Christmas trees that have evermore frequently replaced the real thing, string up the lights outside and hang the stockings on the mantle.

It might be pushing 80 outside, but shhhh that can be ignored for now.

In this ever-growing Christmas Creep, the real loser is the turkey. That majestic, delicious bird that Ben Franklin allegedly thought deserved recognition as the national bird over the Bald Eagle. The turkey’s holiday has been reduced to a mere blip on the radar, a momentary pause in the two-month long rat race that is the Christmas season.

The Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas trifecta is one of the best times of the year. Let us go back to celebrating each and giving them their own due. It’s time for Christmas to creep back into the shadows for a couple more weeks.

Then I will gladly hit play and rock out to the Little Drummer Boy for a solid month.

Brandon O’Connor is a staff writer at The Vicksburg Post. You may reach him at brandon.oconnor@vicksburgpost.com