What Is Going On?

Is my area just weird, or have lots of Americans started decorating for Halloween in the middle of September? And why on earth are they doing so? Are we now taking our decorating cues from the stores who start putting the cobwebs up in August and the Christmas lights in June? I mean, come on, it just looks plain dumb when you have plastic spiders hanging from your trees when the kids have been back in school for, like, a week.