I’m not usually one to post my “hot takes” on the internet because, frankly, I don’t have a lot of them. I do have one, however, and it’s probably my most contentious among my friends.
I don’t like how people are pushing the start of Halloween/spooky season further and further back from October.
It’s begun to happen as early as the middle of August. Just last month I took my son to the supermarket and we saw plastic pumpkin displays and lawn-ornament ghosts. I saw someone online refer to it as “Augtober” and I nearly gagged. No, I say. That’s too early.
I am speaking as someone who LOVES Halloween. It’s my favorite holiday of the Big 3. My wife and I had a Halloween-themed wedding and we required all our guests to dress up in costumes. I adore spooky season, with all its decorations and spooky movies and everything. But I don’t want it starting in September, and I definitely don’t want to start thinking about it when I’m still holding on to summer.
I am also speaking as someone who loves the summertime. Sleeping in because I work from home and I don’t have to rush my son out to the school bus. Beach days relaxing in the water or reading a book on the sand. Those cozy evenings where my family lights up our fire pit, cook dinner over the open flame, and roast marshmallows until the embers fade. August is the last stretch of that magical time, and I want it to remain summer.
September isn’t the start of spooky season for me either. I want September to represent autumn, as well as the start of the school year. The weather is starting to cool down, the leaves are beginning to change, and the routine of the school day returns… which also heralds the return of my parenthood-free work day. I want September to represent apple picking, my first apple cider of the season, and the glorious apple pies we bake (and no one in my house eats except me).
Waiting until October to start the Halloween/spooky season makes it all the more exciting for me. There’s been more buildup, more anticipation for the scary stories and spooky movies. There’s the excitement of arranging trick-or-treating locations and picking costumes. There’s the annual playing of my October playlist, which I’ve been curating over the years. There’s the daily October art challenge! I may want August and September to remain untouched by Halloween, but come October all bets are off.
Most everyone I know fought like hell to keep the Christmas season from getting pushed further and further back from December. Thanksgiving is barely hanging on to November and there was outrage when Christmas decor started to show up in late October. But there seems to be a double-standard when it came to Halloween showing up in August, as those same people cheered it on.
I, however, continue to hold the stubborn line in the late summer sand.