You may have noticed the phenomenon at your local Wal-Mart, Target or other department store – it may only be October, but in many stores across the nation, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

For years Christmas has encroached on Thanksgiving, and it’s not unusual for the Halloween stuff to be quickly replaced by colored lights and other Yuletide accoutrements, but this year the spiders and ghosts are aisle by aisle with the snowmen and evergreens.

This phenomenon is called the “Christmas Creep,” according to the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Hoping to catch early shoppers, retailers are extending their all-important holiday shopping season, which accounts for 25 percent to 40 percent of the year’s sales.

What’s next? Christmas in July? Pumpkins alongside of leprechauns and heart-shaped lace doiles? Your turn to speak