What’s not to love about the color orange?

It is the rich, ripe hue of giant pumpkins at farm stores, the kind my father let us choose for our jack-o’-lantern. Relieved of its squishy innards, it grinned and glowed on our front porch with a happy magic akin to that of the orange harvest moon smiling on our horizon.

My siblings and I always begged for the biggest, the grandpa pumpkin. These days, I am partial to baby pumpkins, though if I dared, I would bring the entire extended family home. But my spouse might question why our car contained forty-seven pumpkins, not even one of which was destined for pie.

So I content myself with a few, but savor orange inside and outside every store and farm stand I visit. A field of pumpkins, scattered like brilliant coins, equals a treasure found.

My mother always said orange was one of my best colors. I often wished I had been blessed with orange hair (why it is called “red” remains as much a mystery as why Caucasians are described as “white.”) I treat myself to watching occasional curly orange heads or ponytails bobbing down my street on their way to school. Clouds of leaves above and below show off similar glorious tints.

Orange is a natural to represent autumn’s joyous season, the color of family fun and thanksgiving for blessings we harvest each year.

But before we have carved jack-o’-lanterns or devoured pumpkin pie, an invasion of red and green ensues. What some refer to as the “Christmas Creep” arrives earlier every year.

Please understand that I love red and green, too. But frankly, they clash with orange.  Can’t we give orange its just due before decking the halls—and 99 percent of the stores—with red-clad Santas, poinsettias and sparkly green Christmas trees?

Should I hand out both candy corn and candy canes to trick-or-treat goblins? Have red and green encroached on October to the degree Santa, several hundred elves and a herd of reindeer also will show up on my doorstep for early snacks?

The orange season, with its Indian summer sunshine and colorful leaves, never lasts long enough. Christmas promotions gobble up Thanksgiving, leaving little time for families—especially those of retail employees—to spend time together and honor the Giver of all good things.

Besides, are we really in a hurry for winter’s arrival and all that ho-ho-ho snow?