I worked at Macy's in the eighties -- we started Christmas well before Thanksgiving. The phrase everyone uses is "Every year it gets earlier!" If it really got that much earlier *every* year, we'd have Christmas in June, everywhere.

Yeah, it happens earlier. But not to the extent that one would believe, if you listened to all the complaints each year.

My mom has a neighbor like that, and it's not a hard core redneck zone. :) They only actually light the lights from Novembmer to January, though.