I went into Pueblo, Colorado on the 1st for the usual biweekly shopping spree. The weather was sunny and hot — “state fair weather” is the local term for a hot break in the late-summer rains that bring the August mushroom flush.
Halloween displays were in the stores. And we have not even celebrated the Chile & Frijoles festival yet!
Then I looked at my own archive and saw that I had photographed a pop-up Halloween party store there on 29 August 2011.
That same year a Bloomberg News columnist decried the “paganism” of Halloween
, even if people only “flirt with the night” in a light-hearted way.
It’s been gaining momentum as being more than “just for kids for” at least thirty years, maybe longer.
I don’t mean for Pagans, I mean for the general population. So praise every plastic pumpkin for serving as a wedge to split open our daytime, materialistic, consensus reality
So this Bloomberg bum decries the “paganism” of Halloween? What does he think Christmas (Saturnalia, Yule) and Easter (Ishtara) are? Puritans were so dour, if it wasn’t for Pagan holdovers, Christianity wouldn’t have any holidays at all!
Community celebrations and holidays and common customs and appreciation for them are good for us. And maybe for other things. Halloween as a secular holiday that folks take part in is fine by me. Joy and delight and pleasant spooky times is not “intellectual property.”
As a Jewish ex-boss once commented to me, all of these “celebrations” are merely harvest festivals. That’s fine with me, although this year my “harvest” was rather non-existent, maybe because I never got around to planting veggies to begin with.
The Bloomberg idiot should just crawl back into whatever religious cult s/he came from.
I don’t have a problem with the celebrations per se, but I do wish that stores would at least keep to the proper time period. Halloween merchandise in July, or Christmas merchandise in October is way too much of rushing the season and that just destroys the whole feel of the holiday.
We live in a world in which preparations for many calendar celebrations are established by the annual production schedules of distant factories and goods transporters with their dockside counterparts. Get stuff when it shows up.
As well as competitive retail marketing. Think Xmas in July. (Folks do say to sellers that they like Halloween stuff near the day. But if it’s on sale three months early, they will still buy it. Retailers know this. Staff gets used to “holiday creep.” No real choice.)
Sigh. Yes, you’re right, but it really destroys the anticipatory feeling of the holiday.