Is it too early for Christmas?

I saw Santa on Saturday, 27 Nov 10! It was a good idea but badly planned and executed. It was the first Christmas shopping weekend, apparently, and hellish busy. Not ideal for wandering around a large shopping centre with 3 and 4 year old boys. The queue for two minutes exposure to the charlatan with an acrylic beard was 30 minutes long and then my sons both got stage fright and wouldn't speak to him.

The queue to see him was more fun. It was marshalled by young women dressed as toy soldiers and one particularly cute and curvy blonde one knelt down to ask my sons what they wanted for Crimbo.
"Don't know," they both mumbled.
"What about a toy soldier," I thought to myself as she smiled up at me with blue eyes and heavily rouged cheeks (obviously my wife was away shopping).
We went on a huge carousel, and there was a wishing fountain and magic cave. It was very well done although it was so far away from Christmas that I could not shake the sense of commercial exploitation that we talk about every year.
There was also a Nativity scene amidst all the Christmas trees, teddy bears, snowmen and other paraphernalia and I was gratified that my boys immediately recognised the essential components; Infant Christ, Mary, Wise Men, etc, so at least we have not completely lost the spirit of Christmas.

Was it too early? Very much so, and not least because I had completely forgotten that England were playing the Springboks. It was not much of a game, apparently, mainly because England failed to live up to expectations again. But surely it's not too much to ask for Christmas; a toy soldier and a win over South Africa?