Here we are - in the middle of the most pureed season in the history of holidays.

‘Tis the season to be spooky, thankful, merry and finally happy in a two-month stretch a society of blenders created. Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas days almost have lost their individualities in this homogenized blob that began well before Halloween Day and will extend through New Year's Day.

‘Tis the season of Hallothanksmas, a period created largely by commerce, that actually started early in September when spooky items begin appearing on store shelves.

Individual holidays, especially Thanksgiving, now have diluted identities. Even Christmas is fading into Winter Festival. Christmas season now is Holiday Season. Merry Christmas has morphed into Happy Holidays. We wouldn't want to offend a member of another religion by mentioning the birthday of Jesus, you know.

I searched through a current flyer of Kmart stores for the word Christmas. It appeared once and in small type, according to my count. (I don't want to pick on Kmart here. Other stores fall into the same Christmas neutralizing syndrome. I just happened to have a Kmart advertising section handy).

My stance suggests an explanation. The purpose of mentioning the public absence of the Christian tradition in the broad scope of Christmas is aimed more at the changing traditions of the special day than at the diminishing religious flavor of this nation's most popular holiday.

Traditions, distinctive in years past, fade as a political correctness surges through society. Christmas exists in honor of the birthday of Jesus, but the religious factor receives decreasing public attention.

The three days - Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween, which is not a national holiday - are straying far from their original traditions and identities in this country.

Each year as we see Halloween become more of a season than a day and more a climax in festivity than remembrance of our dead, and as Christmas envelops Thanksgiving Day and sheds its spiritual aura, honored traditions disappear. Hallowthanksmas looms as a reality.

And, in the spirit of the season: Happy Hallowthanksmas!