Maybe it's me.

I go through this every year. And every year I find myself more and more turned off by the commercialism of Christmas.

Silly me. Here I thought this was supposed to be a time for families to gather and mark the many things for which they are thankful.

Not anymore. Now it's all about what store opens when. Call me Charlie Brown. I don't get it.

What once was something of a tradition in itself, heading out to the malls and big-box stores on Friday, once was a convenience since many people were off work and the kids were home from school. What a quaint notion.

Now the idea of shopping seems to have engulfed the very essence of Thanksgiving.

Stores started opening earlier and earlier. Malls threw open their doors at sunrise. The electronics giants -- destination of all those whose life wold simply be incomplete without a 60-inch flat screen plasma TV -- then started backing up into the pre-dawn hours.

Now you might have to forego the traditional holiday turkey and trimings so as to get your spot in the line outside Best Buy, Comp USA or Circuit City.

Something else strikes me about all this merchandising madness. Someone has to work al those hours, has to stock all those shelves, has to man the cash registers when those doors open at 3 a.m.

I guess it's all harmless. I still don't like it, nor what it says about us, and our priorities.

Hey, if you're going out there, by all means enjoy it. Joy to the world and all that. As someone whose livelihood depends in part on those stores advertising all those sales, I guess I will simply grin and bear it.

Call me a grinch, if you will. I just don't think you can find the meaning of the holidays standing in line outside a store at 3 a.m.