Saw the question about music, figured I would add to the replies. The past few days I have been listening to a funk music station on Pandora, but tonight I settled on a tango-electronica station. My music library on the computer ranges from Metallica to a little bit of Korean Pop, so there's a little bit of everything. I'm not overly fond of current rap, though older rap isn't bad, country doesn't get a lot of playtime from me either. I think most people listen to a wide range of music genres rather than solely one or two genres.
I'm not surprised Halloween stuff is out in craft stores, holiday craft items are usually out 2-3 months prior to the holiday, because crafts take a long time to make in some cases. Hobby Lobby seems to have a little holiday stuff out all year long, the store in Flint seems huge when you start walking around it.
Regular retail stores used to set holiday stuff out 6 weeks before the day itself, which works great. Fourth of July turns into Back to school, which merges into Halloween and Thanksgiving, that leads to Christmas and New Years. The past couple years I've seen Christmas displays in retail stores start earlier and earlier. Last year the displays were out mid September, 3 months early.
Menards already has Halloween candy out for sale, and we're still 80+ days away from the holiday, so I imagine there will be early Christmas sales again this year. It's disappointing to see because I really like Halloween, and it makes me feel like stores are trying to push it off the calendar.
