For the first time this week, the weather outside has led me to believe fall is truly here. As this year’s fall weather makes its especially late arrival, I’ve had the words of the great Conway Twitty song stuck in my head, “Hello darlin’, nice to see you. It’s been a long time, you’re just as lovely as you used to be.”
As I reached to grab a sweater from my closet Monday morning, the part of me who lived in Idaho for a year was smirking and saying, “Now, Catherine, do you really call this cold weather?”
The other part of me who lived under the blistering Florida sun for a year replied, “Um, yes.”
Sweater weather or not, what I’m now especially pumped up for is my favorite holiday of the year: Halloween.
It’s been October for a little more than week, but I really was having a hard time getting in the spirit as it continued to feel like mid-July outside.
As soon as I made it home Monday afternoon, I pulled my boxes of decorations from the shed and sprinkled my house with trinkets of pumpkins, spiders and ghosts. I even pulled together some of my favorite seasonal flicks into one special pile, including “Hocus Pocus,” “Scream,” “Carrie,” “Earnest Scared Stupid,” “The Shining,” “The Addams Family,” “It” and “Ghostbusters,” just to name a few.
But if you go to a store right now, you’ll feel like you’re trapped somewhere in the midst of “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” (another favorite of mine) because on one set of rows there are Halloween decor and further down are aisles filled with decorations to transform any home into a Christmas wonderland.
It’s not even halfway through the month and Halloween is already being overshadowed with tinsel, multi-colored lights, artificial trees and tacky ornaments. Santa Claus will make his appearance soon enough, but for now I just want to see pumpkins, cackling witches, creepy clowns, spooky ghosts, fake insects and spiderweb trimming.
Maybe there’s a grinch deep down inside me, but can’t Christmas just get in line and wait its turn like everyone else? I love that holiday too, but it seriously needs to calm down. Maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention as a child, but I swear stores didn’t deck the halls this early in the year.
While I have a sweet spot in my heart for Halloween, the holiday I probably feel the most sorry for is Thanksgiving.
Poor Thanksgiving, overshadowed by football and the looming Christmas holiday, I believe the day would be nearly forgotten if it weren’t for the turkey dinner and Black Friday sales.
I suppose the sheer simplicity is one reason I love Halloween so much.
There is no real pressure. You don’t have to figure out what to buy as presents for people, there is no elaborate meal to prepare and you don’t feel obligated to have awkward get-togethers with relatives you only see once or twice a year.
Instead, people on Halloween can let their imaginations run wild. They can dress up as whatever they want to be without receiving any strange looks and then they go out and party.
As a child, I loved wearing costumes and walking with my friends to knock on strangers’ doors to collect candy. I miss dumping out our treasures onto the middle of the living room floor and eating an unnatural amount of sugar in one sitting. It sounds odd on paper but it made for some of the best memories of my childhood. And now, it’s an activity I enjoy doing with my own children.
Once Nov. 1 arrives, then it’s time to get ready for Thanksgiving. My family didn’t even think about putting up our Christmas tree until after Thanksgiving decorations were put away. After all, what would our stuffed pilgrims and Native Americans have thought?
My good friend and former roommate, Jennie, centers her life around Christmas. Since mid-September, her apartment has looked like the inside of a Christmas magazine. Her tree is already decorated, lights and garland are strung across every square inch she could find and there are several holiday knick knacks scattered about. The woman even has presents already wrapped and placed neatly beneath her tree. If it weren’t for her husband needing some normalcy, I think she would keep her home like this year-round.
I asked her once if she hates Halloween and Thanksgiving and she replied, “No, I just really like Christmas.”
You don’t say.
Personally, I enjoy and crave variety. I don’t even like eating the same meal twice in a row if I can avoid it. I believe too much of anything takes away from what makes it special and unique.
I’ll happily wait for the next two holidays to pass before I pull out my Christmas decorations.
Catherine Kirk is managing editor of the Delta Democrat-Times. She can be reached at ckirk@ddtonline.com.
