Last week, I stopped into a local home improvement store looking for some mums to brighten up the frazzled summer planters on our front porch. As I walked towards the garden center, I noticed the clearance patio furniture was mingling with ghoulish zombies and inflatable front lawn witches. And beyond the gray plastic tombstones and motion-activated goblins stood an assortment of pre-lit Christmas trees and blow-up roof Santas. The smell of cinnamon-infused pine cones mixed with the scent of cleaning products from the next aisle over. I scurried past as fast as I could to escape this meltdown of seasonal holidays, setting off cackles from the skeletons and Christmas music from a dancing elf as I headed for the mums.
I don’t remember every holiday being a major decorating event, but now it seems like there are flashing LED lights, costumes, and tableware available no matter what the occasion. Valentine’s candies and heart balloons appear before the Christmas decorations have been put away. Fall pumpkin décor shows up in front of the grocery store entrance at the end of July. There’s a larger-than-life skeleton in front of a local business that makes me mutter “It’s only September” every time I pass it on my way to work.
Maybe I’m becoming a curmudgeon, but everything feels larger and louder, like a competition to prove that you’re in the spirit of any given holiday. Halloween has gone up several notches on the size and decorating scale these days. The costume aisles at Target and Walmart are filled with as many costumes for adults as kids, not to mention all the options for the pets in our lives. (And yes, I will confess to buying silly costumes for our dogs, but the stink-eye I received from them made me take them off quickly.)
Growing up in the 1970s, I remember there was a definite cut-off date for Halloween. It was not cool to be caught trick-or-treating after a certain age. If you decided to push it for one more year, the neighbors would give you a look or say something like “aren’t you a little too old to be doing this?” as you made your way around the neighborhood with your little sister. The adults stayed home and handed out candy. They tried to play along as we walked up to the doorsteps, wearing uncomfortable plastic face masks with tiny eye and nose holes that obstructed our vision and breathing, the costume stretched tight over the top of the winter jacket our parents made us wear. “Why look, I think Wonder Woman and Batman are at our door,” Mrs. Lofte would say as she dropped candy bars into our bags.
We’d carve pumpkins the night before, using a dull steak knife, scooping the innards onto old newspaper, and maybe roasting the seeds if we were feeling ambitious. Right before we’d head out, we’d light the candles in the pumpkins and place them on the steps for neighbors to admire. The next day, there’d be someone at the bus stop who was upset because their pumpkin was squashed by a prankster or there might be toilet paper in a neighbor’s tree, especially if they were a teacher or principal.
And then it was done. Nothing was on the schedule for the next month, except Thanksgiving, which was the gateway holiday to Christmas and didn’t require much for decoration or shopping, just preparing for food and family visits.
I think that’s what bothers me about skeletons in September. If we’re always running from one holiday to the next, we never get time to anticipate or appreciate them. We don’t need all the gifts, lights, food, and decorations. Instead of hurrying to get ready for the next big event, we need to slow down and celebrate the people around us and what they bring to our lives.