One of the most common questions I hear moms pose today is, “Where does time go?”

I have addressed this in several columns, with the general opinion of mine being that our lives are faster paced than in years past and we are missing minutes and hours by rushing through them in our daily lives.

I also feel time passes quickly with me, because we are on a weekly system here at The Headlight. We only worry about one day of the week, Wednesday.

That is the only date we use and that makes time seem to pass much more quickly than before I became editor.

Well, I am here to tell you that I have further solved the mystery, somewhat.

It is commercialism that is rushing us through life.

I have heard many complaints over the last several years of Thanksgiving being a forgotten holiday. Stores pull Halloween candy from the shelves to immediately replace it with Christmas wreaths and ribbons. That has been happening for so long, I’m sure many of us have gotten desensitized to it.

What I experienced this year took things to a whole new level.

I went Christmas shopping two full weeks before Christmas. I went to the Christmas section in the store to grab some  Christmas candy to cook with and have around the house for the girls.

When I approached the Christmas section, there was no candy. I finally found it, and the decorations, in the back corner of the area. What was on the front shelves you might ask? Valentine candy! And I’m not done. Beside the Valentine candy, was Easter candy! Cadbury Eggs and Conversation Hearts filled the shelves that, in my opinion, should have still held Christmas Tootsie Rolls and red and green M&Ms.

These stores are the ones rushing us through time. I can just see a soccer mom running into the store to grab something, eyeing the Valentine and Easter candy and a full panic ensue. She would then rush through Christmas to hurry up and get her Valentine decorations out, because she already had the Valentine candy in a bag in the dining room.

That’s it in a nutshell. Commercialism and the almighty dollar are pushing us quickly through life and we are allowing them to…like puppets on a string…or robots in an assembly line.

Someone please stop the madness!