Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane, snow is glistening. A beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight, walking in a winter wonderland...

You have got to be kidding me.

In September, the Bonneville St. Louis Radio Group, the local branch of a nationwide broadcasting company, announced station WMVN 101.1 FM, known as Movin’ 101.1, would change its format from music to sports talk on Jan. 1 of 2009. The organization went on to say 101.1 would be continuing its original programming until the holiday season, when it may begin to air holiday music.

Apparently, the holiday season begins Oct. 10, which is when the station proceeded to switch to nothing but Christmas music all day, every day.

Perhaps I’m a bit traditional, but the holiday I typically associate with October is Halloween.

As a general rule, I spend the tenth month of the year looking at the fall colors and trying to think of a costume.

I am not decking the halls with boughs of holly. I am not letting it snow. And no one is handing me a partridge in a pear tree. And I like it that way.

Granted, 101.1 cannot be blamed. They are switching formats and changing personnel, and that can obviously be difficult.

However, it is a little frustrating when the radio station’s website proclaims to be “celebrating the season” as “your holiday station!”

Yes, I suppose it is my holiday station. It is also the only holiday station, for a reason. For the most part, people try not to think about Christmas until after Thanksgiving. The general muttering in the hallways of KHS is unappreciative of 101.1 putting visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads.

However, cheesy Christmas songs are not the only holiday things to unwelcomely bombard my fellow scrooges and me.

Stores are already moving the Halloween decorations to dusty clearance bins and wrapping golden garland around fake trees. Towering arrangements of frilly ornaments reach the ceiling. Fake snow litters every display. It is certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and Thanksgiving still looms on the horizon.

Of course, the holidays are a time to celebrate. They convey a sense of peace, love and family. It is a season for reconnecting with loved ones, curling up by the fire and hoping for that elusive snow day.

The world seems to operate with a warm atmosphere, where personal differences are set aside for the sake of community. Everything can seem hopeful, if only for a little while.

An elaborate display of plastic Santas for sale is not what the holiday season should be about.

Not everyone likes to be swamped with Christmas. In fact, most everyone considers the flood of commercial cheer to be downright annoying. It is absurd for marketers to assume that everyone celebrates Christmas.

And it is laughable to assume that the atmosphere of Christmas needs to be pushed as early as October.

Somehow “O’ Christmas Tree” does not have the same effect when singing to a pumpkin.