I love fall. I love this city in fall; I adore the burnt oranges, the J. Crew catalogues, the dearth of tourists. I love the football it brings with it, not to mention the hockey. Cider and quite possibly hot chocolate, caramel apples. Logs in the fireplace, even if they are Duraflame. Crisp mornings against a clear blue sky. Cinnamon votives and knee-high boots, fattened squirrels and falling back.  

If I were prone to such things, here’s where I would write one of those open letters and toss it into the vast beyond to absolutely no one in particular. And apparently I am very much prone to such things. So Dear radio: PLEASE DO LET US HAVE FALL.

Soon our FM stations will inundate us with Christmas music, and I for one hate it. You’ve barely had time to make your way through the Sarah Palin corn maze and carve your pumpkin with the explicit intent of scaring the neighborhood children to the very verge of incontinence before they start with the not so dulcet tones of Springsteen’s Santa What Not is Coming to Albuquerque and Madonna’s insipid Santa Baby. It simply isn’t time, and like preemies who haven’t warmed all the way through, we simply aren’t ready.

So please, let us have our spiced lattes and gallons of not particularly seaonsal red wine before we go there, would you? Let us curse dirty leaves that make their way into our cars and one or more Redskins losses. Let us be well into sweaters and scarves and, for the unfortunate few, knitted hats that don’t in any color scheme match our coats, before you strike. At least rest until the burn of canned cranberry jellies have passed. Because cranberry and a blue Christmas? It just isn’t a good look for anyone.

Then when we are ready, when the masses face frozen car doors and the warm embrace of family holiday guilt, bestow upon us the Bing and pretty much anything Perry Como. I’ll support a three-week spree, MAX. And when New Year’s passes, know that it’s time to move on, time to resist the urge to start building the playlist for Christmas in July. Because like fruitcake and the Celine Dion box set, no one ever really asked for that anyway.