Perhaps Kmart panicked after having a nightmare that it was November and had forgotten to put together a holiday ad campaign, or maybe some prankster at Sears changed a Kmart marketing exec’s desk calendar. Why else would the beleaguered retailer start airing a holiday shopping ad while it’s still summer?

AdAge reports that Kmart started airing the below ad yesterday in various markets around this country, much of which is still reeling from all the back-to-school sales.

Granted, it’s an ad for Kmart’s holiday layaway program so it makes sense that it would be on TV before the huge holiday commercial push, but can’t we at least wait until the autumnal equinox has come and gone before clogging our TVs with hallucinatory images of talking gingerbread men?

“We’re just really excited for the holidays and layaway!” the retailer is telling ticked-off customers, but last year Kmart was able to rein in that excitement until the more appropriate date of Oct. 28.

A rep for the National Retail Federation pulls a term straight out of the Consumerist Lexicon, when she says this too-early ad “might give new meaning to the phrase Christmas Creep.” Though we don’t quite understand what she means, as airing a holiday shopping commercial many months ahead of time is exactly what Christmas Creep means.

Kmart tells AdAge that the spot is being “tweaked,” but wouldn’t say how. We’re going to hope that “tweaked” is ad-speak for “pulled from the airwaves” and replaced with 30 seconds of sponsored silence.

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