“Deck the halls with boughs of holly, tis the season to be jolly. So don we now our gay apparel,” and head on down to Abergavenny’s Cibi Walk where Christmas has come early this year. Some might say too early.

So what the merry hell is going on?

Well take a walk through Aber’s arcade and the answer will quite literally hit you in the face like a cold wet trout.

The Chronicle has been inundated with queries, and they’re not all from a disgruntled gentleman called Ebenezer, asking why the Dickens the Christmas decorations have been put up outrageously early this year.

Have the party planners got prematurely carried away with the Christmas spirit?

Take for example the towering Christmas tree standing rather awkwardly like an unwanted guest at a party, slap bang in the middle of the popular precinct?

Decked out like a festive filly with an array of gaudy baubles, never has a tree looked so apologetic for its existence.

And then there’s the assorted decorations and the massive wreath sitting pretty over the heads of everyone who leaves and enters this winter wonderland.

It’ll probably make a perfect perch for a wandering wart-infested witch to park her broom and cackle like a blood-crazed banshee this Halloween.

That’s right! Halloween! It hasn’t even happened yet. The legions of the undead have yet to walk the earth, curdle the milk and annoy the cats, but already this most ancient of Celtic festivals is being denied it’s rightful place in the calendar by a tsunami of tinsel and tack.

One disgruntled visitor to Aber’s fair alleyways and avenues barked, “I’m all for feeling festive but it’s not even December yet for god’s sake. Putting up a tree in October makes a mockery of both Halloween and Xmas. What next I ask, zombies strutting about in Father Christmas suits singing the Little Drummer Boy and the First Noel?”

It’s a fair point and one well made.

Yet another dismayed visitor explained, “I came to Abergavenny to see if I could get a Zombie nurse or maybe Harley Quinn outfit for a popular Halloween blood fest in Merthyr me and the girls always attend, but seeing those decorations and that tree killed my bad girl vibe completely. “Instead of feeling all ghoulish and wicked I began to feel a little festive and warm. Not that I’m complaining, it’s jut the wrong time of the year and I was trying to get my mindless zombie head on in preparation for the Halloween weekend. To be honest seeing that Xmas tree really threw me. I didn’t know if I was coming or going. So I just went”

One gentleman of a more religious persuasion added, “I love Christmas but everything has its time and place. When festive decorations are put up in October is it really a celebration of the birth of the Christ child or something else? I ask your readers this - Have we forgotten the real season for the season?”