Tuesday Cannon Fodder: holiday decorations

On my walk around a nearby neighborhood yesterday evening, I noticed a few houses have put up their Halloween decorations already. Now, I’m not one to rain on somebody else’s parade or judge them for little things like that, especially in #thesetroubledtimes where people have been cooped up inside for months. But for me, five weeks strikes me as a tad early to be breaking out the skeleton in the lawn chair and the fake headstones for the yard. I’m definitely not putting up Halloween decorations until we roll over into October.

It’s in the same vein as the Christmas Creep that will have holiday commercials start airing sometime next month. That’s ridiculous, honestly. There’s a whole other holiday, Thanksgiving, that gets subsumed by Christmas. That’s why I do not allow myself to listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving (but I may break that rule this year because Christmas music makes me happy and 2020 has made me distinctly not happy).

But I digress. Let’s look at it from the other side. We get a full two months of Christmas, so why not five or six weeks of Halloween? For some, it’s the preferred holiday. Fall is a great season: harvest festivals, pumpkin patches, and the like all tie-in with Halloween. Putting together a creative costume is great fun (for some). Painting and carving pumpkins is a good time, and even I enjoy a decent jump-scare from time to time. Also, candy. Who doesn’t like candy?

So what do you think? When is too early to begin decorating/preparing for a holiday? There are no wrong answers, obviously. I’m genuinely curious!