Working in American retail many years ago taught me a great many things.

A short list:

• How to show up for work, even when you don’t want to (which is most days.)

• How to navigate a never-ending work flow. (The semi trailers loaded with goods and customer concerns never stop coming.)

• How to navigate interpersonal conflict (particularly when dealing with coworkers who either don’t ever learn Point No. 1 or who are just downright weird.)

And another subject taught?

Magic.

No, I never learned how to perform illusions (though some coworkers were often quite adept at making themselves disappear). But it did teach some neat tricks, all the same.

For instance: How to — poof! — appear to make the whole month of November disappear, in a single night, going straight from the season of creepy, spooky and weird to the time of merry and jolly (though admittedly, still weird, just with more sheen, pine needles and elves).

In America today, we are divided into two camps: Those who believe the Christmas season begins in those black predawn hours on the last Friday of November, and those who insist on decking the halls the instant those final costumed characters depart the front stoop.

In many ways, retail taught me who was largely to blame for this — ahem — “Polar-ization”: Magnates named Macy, Walton and Dayton.

Every Halloween night, as those final trick-and-treaters wrapped up their rounds, my coworkers and I would head into the big box retail store, punch the clock and work through the night, relocating the skeletons, zombies, spiders and other ghouls to a back corner of the sales floor or into the back room altogether, while wheeling out pallet after pallet of wrapping paper, lab-created trees, bows, tinsel, garland, ornaments, lights and other Yuletide baubles and doodads.

By 8 a.m. the next day, Mariah, Bing, Nat and Ol’ Blue Eyes had been wheeled out of cold storage to provide the new seasonal soundtrack.

And the entire store had been transformed into a marshmallow world, all to persuade kids from one to 92 that November may not really exist — at least until the month’s final Friday.

Years in retail also imbued other magical traits, like the ability to block out otherwise unforgettable holiday standards.

And, more importantly, the ability to learn to focus on the magic and wonder in the season, even when submerged in a holding tank of holiday gooeyness for days on end.

It wasn’t something that was imparted through the wave of a wand, though. Rather, it was a skill that was learned through the years.

And it is a skill that has proven particularly handy in the past 15 years or so, as my household has learned the true meaning of the season between Halloween and the days after Thanksgiving, a time we have come to refer to as “Nutcracker Season.”

Since she was 3 years old, my older daughter has danced ballet. In some ways, it’s been longer than that, as her mother and I could swear she emerged from the womb twirling and spinning in sparkly dresses.

But ever since she was 3, I have found myself plopped into a chair in our local theater, taking in the magic and splendor of her dance company’s rendition of the holiday tradition from the mind of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, multiple times every year on the first weekend of December.

And that comes after countless rehearsals, that ramp up intensely as the calendar moves relentlessly from Oct. 31 to the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Most years, the challenge posed by the drudgery often has led to delays in transforming our own home for the holidays.

In that time, the incessant replays of the same routines also has made me feel as if I have learned almost as much as she. Of course, I still couldn’t show you the difference between an arabesque and a tendu. But after so many hours of observation, I can tell you when a dancer isn’t executing those moves correctly (again, somehow, weird).

But after so many journeys with Clara through the Land of Sweets, I can now also tell you where true magic can be found:

Not in any amount of decorations, baubles or carols on endless loops. Rather, it’s in watching a kid light up a room, while doing what they love, no matter the amount of dadly duties that may be tied up in the package.

This year, the older one took her final bow as a member of the cast of “The Nutcracker.” And while the end of her run is bittersweet, we have still more “Nutcracker Seasons” to come, as the younger one now follows in her steps (and pointe hops).

So while the rest of you spend the weeks after Halloween arguing over when Santa is cleared for takeoff, you can catch their mother and I in that local theater, blocking out the nonsense to zero in on the magic a few more times, at what is — for us — the true beginning of the holiday season.