Stuart Elliott: “Season’s Greetings” in September; Here Comes “Christmas Creep”

To everything there is a season, according to Ecclesiastes, and few take that more to heart than the denizens of Madison Avenue. It's not that they're especially religious, mind you. It's that they never miss an opportunity to sell somebody something. So advertisers, agencies and the media industry pay close attention to the calendar, celebrating one seasonal milestone after another to borrow interest from events that are important enough to consumers to be intrinsic parts of their lives.