Holidays

Don't we have some holiday grace period or something? Before we've even recovered from our New Year's hangovers, Valentines day merchandise is glaring at us from store shelves.
Am I the only one who's not ready to consider another holiday yet? I mean, we've been in "Holiday mode" since October, maybe even before that. Before October is in full swing, there's Christmas decorations and gift ideas screaming at us, nevermind the Thanksgiving Holiday. In recent years, we've just started passing that one over. Before Christmas has even heralded its presence (or presents), we have New Year's laughing at us.
Maybe I'm just looking through rose tinted glasses, but I seem to recall a time when the holidays weren't geared so much for consumers. They were more about the holidays. You didn't see Halloween until the first day of October (and those were the 'early birds'), or Thanksgiving until after Halloween, or Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving.
Over the years I have lost my sense of anticipation for the holidays. I'm sure some of it is growing older. We all know that time passes differently as we age. I'm relatively certain that part of it is new found adult life stresses - the worry of finding things for everyone. I'm absolutely convinced that a good portion of this loss of anticipation - which, lets face it, was a good part of the fun - is due to the fact that for months before the holiday we are so inundated with merchandise and well wishings, that by the time the holiday arrives we're so tired of seeing or hearing about it that we're just done. Why do we insist on doing things ad nauseum in today's society?