Hello, Darkness? Meet Candle.

Here's a bit of news that the Missus passed on to me in the wake of my ranting about Starbucks having put on its Christmas rig already. According to her, over at Nordstrom's (and I assume she means the one in Tyson's Corner), there is a large sign that reads, "We Believe In Celebrating One Holiday At A Time. Therefore, You Will Not See Any Christmas Decorations Here Until November 23. Happy Thanksgiving!"

I loathe department stores, especially department stores in malls. Nonetheless, I so like this stance that I'm almost tempted to send a bit of custom Nordstrom's way just to show my support.

Put Out That Light! UPDATE: Then again, there's this:

SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.

"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.

"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.

"Leave Santa alone."

A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

Frankly, I dunno whether I really believe this, given its utter jaw-dropping stoopidity. Then again, you'll never go broke betting on stoopid.

UPDATE DEUX: Stoopid? Did I say stoopid? I did:

An early skirmish in this year's "War on Christmas" ended on Tuesday when the nationwide home improvement chain Lowe's apologized for referring to Christmas trees in its holiday catalog as "family trees."

"That was a complete error," Maureen Rich, a spokeswoman for Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse - which serves more than 13 million customers a week in its 1,400 stores across the nation - told Cybercast News Service. "Right now, we're extremely disappointed in this breakdown in our own creative process.

"We are apologizing to customers today for any confusion our holiday catalog created," Rich said. She explained that the full-color document is called a holiday catalog "because it encompasses all the holidays from October through January."

Rich's comments came in response to an "Action Alert" sent out earlier in the day by the Mississippi-based American Family Association. The e-mail stated: "In an effort to avoid the use of the term 'Christmas tree,' Lowe's [is] now calling them 'family trees.'"