assalut of the Christmas commercials

Apparently Halloween passing was some kind of cue for retailers and television networks to ramp up the Christmas message. I say "ramp up" because even before Halloween I was in a store that was playing carols over the sound system. As soon as I realized it, I put down the things I had planned to buy and left.
But while fast-forwarding through the commercials on my recorded television shows last week, I realized every other commercial (or so) was Christmas-related. I can only imagine the message had I been actually watching the shows in real time: "buy, buy buy! spend, spend, spend! Go into debt, mortgage your house, the only think that will make you child happy is thousands of dollars in toys under the Christmas tree!"
Hooey.
I'm pretty pleased with the fact that Daniel is happy with whatever he gets, no matter how much or how little. Sometimes it's only a few presents, but high-quality ones. Sometimes it's a bunch, like the year he got a load of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff and we put it all together to make his train table. This year, he actually wants to downsize, and is asking for a smaller train table with the understanding that the big one will go away. He'll probably get it, since it was what we had planned to do to make space in his room for a second bed. But he's also getting a set of luggage from Grandma so he can go visit!
For the record, the one commercial I did watch - then rewound and watched again - was a vaccuum commercial in which a big, black, shaggy dog walks into a white room, shakes, and explodes into twenty little black dogs. I can't find a link to it, and I don't remember what type of vaccuum it was (shows how effective the commercial was), but I'm sure it'll play again.
--Misty