WILL security guards outnumber Santa Claus this holiday? (Shutterstock).

It’s beginning to look … oh, you know the rest.

If you haven’t noticed those early bird Christmas displays in your neighborhoods, or the sprouting of holiday tree lots on vacant street corners, all you have to do is turn on your television.

Technically, we were watching NFL football, but you might as well be watching programs about Best Buy, Google, Apple, Bath and Body Works, etc., and the legally required beer commercials with a few football highlights wedged in here and there.

Took a trip to South Coast Plaza before every single parking space was consumed and noted the opening salvoes of red, green and gold decorations covering every square inch of available space.

Even more notable was the presence of “heightened” security. From one end to another – from Nordstrom to Starbucks – there were armed security guards. As far as we could determine, every shop had one at the entrance or just inside. They looked bored, but that’s better than the fear that led to them being hired: mass smash-and-grab raids by highly-motivated (and very probably intoxicated) nimrods who will drop half of their loot as they stumble through the lot, trying to remember where they’re parked.

I am certain that the presence of an armed guard is intended as a psychological deterrent. But it’s hard to imagine a rent-a-cop opening up with his or her 9mm on a teenage girl grabbing a Coach handbag. A Louis Vuitton, maybe …

What if a shot goes wild and you hit a really valuable customer who has a Platinum American Express card?

It’s clear that a less-than-lethal approach is needed. So just think … what kind of person would anyone want to avoid in a closed space like a doorway?

A beer-aholic with too much Axe body spray? An evangelist for some obscure cult asking for donations and trying to force a pamphlet into your hands?

Some smarmy relative who likes to give 45-second holiday hugs, even to strangers? The clueless patron who brings three small, yappy, easily-offended dogs on long leashes just right for tangling the ankles of anyone who passes within three feet.

My last ditch approach would be to have a lottery ticket turn-stile kiosk at each exit, with a no-cash, no-credit purchase policy.  To get out, you’d have a make a “purchase.” There are so many people who are anxious to take part in a one-in-a-million losing proposition that Nordstrom may actually make some money from being raided.