Were Those Christmas Trees I Spotted at a Local Store Already?

My wife and I were doing some shopping over the weekend when I spotted these babies on display, and I thought to myself, "Are those REALLY Christmas trees I'm seeing?!?"

Which got me thinking that, seeing as it's not even September yet (though we're close), this might be the earliest I've ever seen Christmas trees displayed in a store.

But, before you get too worked up about how the crass commercialization of various retailers is rushing the holiday season, my wife wondered if these really are, in fact, Christmas trees.

She pointed out that the words 'Christmas tree' doesn't actually appear anywhere on the trees or the display. In fact, the only visible tag was the 'blue is cool' tag that advertises the benefits of planting one of these cute, baby blue spruce trees.

Now, surely you could use one of these as a Christmas tree, but perhaps I was a bit hasty in calling them that. They do LOOK like a row of Christmas trees, though, don't they?

But the fact that there isn't any other festive holiday decor involved makes me think my wife is right: These probably aren't Christmas trees. At least, not yet.

But that does raise the question, though: Just how early is too early for stores to display their holiday decorations?