Sir, - I would like to add my voice to that of Lesley Fennell (October 9th), who writes of her displeasure at the early arrival of Christmas in Dublin's city centre. Christmas can be a wonderful time of year but, like most special things, it is best kept within its own traditional time-frame.
It disappoints me to see the Christmas lights going up and on so early each year. Perhaps those of us who feel like this could organise a "Keep Christmas for Christmas" campaign. In my childhood (the not-so dark days of the 1960s and 1970s), decorations were kept in the box until a week or so before the big day. How exciting it was to unpack the old familiar baubles, angels and tinsel!
We are all affected by commercial realities and the need to make a buck, but this spectacle of Christmas reversing into the space usually occupied by autumn is just too much. What next, the Easter Bunny in January? - Yours, etc., Philip Jackson,
Chapelizod,
Dublin 20.