Christmas is coming. Christmas is here, here at Kohl’s. It is October, we’re teetering towards mid-fall. Leaves are no longer green or loyal to the branch, they’re swirling around in the air and falling down waiting to be raked or swept. Yet, already the department stores are decking their halls – Kohl is going with last year’s yuletide motif – and crying sale, even though jack o lanterns and skulls remind us of scary death. The year is split in two. October – to – April, as we get through winter, we laugh at death as the days grow dark and chillier, when winter is here we shout joy to the world, and then when spring arrives we’re resurrected. Candy abounds. The rest of the year is summer and baseball and the holidays are more spread out, three day weekends mainly. The fruit and vegetables are fresh, who needs man-made sugar to get you through. Halloween Season. The Christmas Season. Preparation and parties. Both come earlier. Both last longer. Here in Kohl’s was an interesting conflict. Maybe if they sold candy there would be a bigger table for a Halloween when Halloween is just a few days away. These two holidays form in our childhood minds, horror and joy and they mesh and with the Christmas sales season starting earlier and earlier, Christmas and Halloween arrive at the same time. A friend said they saw Christmas and Halloween stuff at a Costco the last week in July. We used to have one then the other. Now when we get one, we get the other. The Halloween table has only a few days left. Horror then Joy. Now though, it’s the horror and the joy. Then the horror is gone back inside our minds and the only joy is the kind you can buy.
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