We can't blame this on 'supply train disruptions' but it's happening anyway

The warnings are everywhere, even in this morning's edition of Curtis, by Ray Billingsley: Supply chain disruptions are threatining the giddy consumer excesses of the forthcoming Christmas holiday.

Also in USA Today: "Christmas trees, sweaters, gifts in shipping mess: How supply chain issues will affect holiday shopping." So, too, on Bloomberg.com: "Christmas at Risk as Supply Chain ‘Disaster’ Only Gets Worse."

Untold numbers of ugly Christmas sweaters, plastic geegaws for the kiddies, and coffee mugs with pithy slogans that would make great stocking stuffers or office grab bag gifts -- all these and so much more are marooned off our Pacific coast, trapped in wallowing container ships, escalating our holiday anxieties. And it may not just be the stranded ships. Thanks to COVID-19 realignments, there aren't as many truckers or warehouse workers or order takers or anyone else willing to get what you want to get for Christmas to a store (or front porch) near you. Apparently you are best advised to grab whatever you can get right now, paying full price if necessary, because, this year, unless you get what we got now, there won't be anything to get when you'd otherwise be ready to get it.

So "they" say.

But we need not wade into the thorny dispute over whether immediate Christmas shopping, even before the neighborhood squirrels have finished gnawing all the Halloween pumpkins, is really and truly necessary. Time will tell whether supply chain hysteria was or was not warranted.

One thing we know for sure: There is and can be no supply chain disruption involving Christmas music. Christmas music will be readily available when Advent starts, at the end of this month. Mariah Carey, Elmo and Patsy, and Dominick the Christmas Donkey can wait in the wings a while longer yet; we will certainly be able to find them when the time comes.

Nevertheless, despite the fact that no supply chain issue threatens its ultimate availability, Robert Feder reports that WLIT will start playing Christmas music today. This afternoon, in fact. Starting at 4:05 p.m.

Did it really need to be this way?