We should be allowed to do this

Meelyn and I had to run some errands today while Aisling was at her piano lesson, and as we were driving around, we went past an extraordinary number of houses that had Christmas decorations out, both elaborate and simple, but also had their fall stuff still sitting around, looking all bedraggled and dispirited. It's as if those pumpkins and corn shocks just know that they are there looking totally inappropriate, like wearing a bathrobe and curlers to a wedding.

What is the deal with this, people? Can you not bend over and pick up that pumpkin after you get done setting up your enormous inflated Frosty? Could you at least put those corn shocks in your light-up nativity scene where they'll at least look like fodder for the cow and the donkey rather than the abashed remnants of Thanksgiving over and done? CAN YOU AT LEAST TAKE IN YOUR DECORATIVE FLAG THAT READS "HAPPY HALLOWEEN"?!?

This bothers my tidy sense of everything-in-its-placeness, so here's my proposal:

I think that people who leave their autumn/Halloween decorations outdoors and then go ahead and put up their Christmas finery outside are not contributing to the beauty of our towns and cities. So other citizens, the kind who scrupulously remove all pumpkinage from their front porches on December first, or the first day of Advent, or even the day after Thanksgiving, should be able to drive around with Red Ryder BB guns and use the Christmas decor for target practice. One of the shepherds or maybe even Rudolph could lose an eye, so let this be a warning to all of you who can't summon the energy to heft the pumpkins into the garbage bin.