Work retail? Me? How'd you guess.

Floating around the internet for a while- always reappearing at about this time each year- is a photo of a sign at Nordstrom. There's actually multiple versions of this photo, taken in different years. It essentially says... well, here:

(Courtesy A Little Ditty and Apartment Therapy, respectively. I know nothing of either of these sites, except they are, as it were, pro Nordstrom signage.)

At first, I was all for this. And then I thought, hang on... the reason stores put up Christmas stuff early is to get your bucks before you give them elsewhere, by reminding you that 'tis the season, bitches!

This, I think falls into the same line of thinking as car manufacturers who keep putting their vehicles out earlier and earlier. These days, you buy a 2013 vehicle in February of 2012. Same with magazines. Weekly magazines can be pulled from the rack a week before the date on the cover. Monthly magazines come out two months before their date.

So, sure, Nordstrom isn't putting up decorations. They're just putting a goddamn sign in your face. "Look at us! We're better! See how we're not mentioning Christmas to you? We're not mentioning Christmas! (Or Black Friday!)"

Back-handed bitch slap, that is. You don't know you've been hit until after the forehand is already on trajectory back to you.

So, yeah, my first objection was my slow realization that I had just been psychologized. And then it hit me. How in the hell do they go from day-before-Thanksgiving-NOT-Christmas to day-after-Thanksgiving-CHRISTMAS? And they prep for Black Friday? Because, I will tell you, Christmasing a store takes hella long. It's an intense process... Please, someone correct me; I want to be wrong on this. I want there to be a way that this store magically converts itself- without making their employees work crazy hours the day before Thanksgiving, or, worse, on Thanksgiving itself.

I'd rather see decorations too early.

Just don't play the music.