It’s Christmas Eve today on the Gregorian calendar, so what better time to address something I often contemplate but never really talk about much:
My love/hate relationship with the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I was six when the movie first came out, and was extremely intrigued as, of course, my interest in Halloween was taking shape and this was a movie featuring characters that looked like walking decorations. The looks of some of the characters scared me a little at first (I have a vivid memory of checking behind the shower curtain for a lurking Jack Skellington every time I went to the bathroom for a couple of years.) but I did enjoy the movie, and was most in love with the characters of Sally and Zero. Nonetheless, as a young child, I always felt there was something about the story that I just didn’t quite “get”, so the movie was never a go-to when I was a kid the way Hocus Pocus was.
In fact, I don’t think I gave much thought to The Nightmare Before Christmas until my teen years. I think a part of me almost forgot all about it, until I met Laura, the goth girl I talked about admiring in my spooky fashion post. She was a huge Nightmare Before Christmas fan, and jolted the movie back into my mind. The more I delved into it, the more I realized, “Hey, this is a way to be able to express my love for Halloween all year round!” and thus began several years of obsessive collecting. I had so much merchandise relating to The Nightmare Before Christmas. Dolls, clothing, accessories, bags, stationary, blankets, perfume...You name it, I probably had it with Jack and Sally’s picture on it. Looking back, I have no idea if this was because I actually loved the movie, or just thought it was the only option at the time for someone like me, who loved Halloween and wanted to express that in my day-to-day life, but not really stand out in a crowd. At the time, the thought of wearing pumpkins all year was weird, but Nightmare Before Christmas characters were acceptable, different than sporting a t-shirt featuring Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, but not outlandish.
I don’t remember at what age I started to fall out of love with all of my Nightmare-related stuff. Probably my early to mid-twenties. The market just started to feel overly saturated with it, and Jack Skellington started to feel more and more like any other Disney character. He suddenly wasn’t that special one, that the year-round Halloween crowd clung to anymore. Being a fan of the movie suddenly became commonplace, and decorations and clothing based on it just didn’t fulfill me anymore. So, I started to think, not only about how I felt about merchandise relating to the movie, but how I felt about the movie and characters in general.
I do like the movie and it will always be a part of me, and a jumping-off point for me starting to become my true self, but I’m nowhere near the fan of it I once claimed to be.
For one thing, Jack Skellington’s Halloween Town has never been what I’d picture a world of Halloween to look like. It’s almost bordering on too gloomy. I need orange in my Halloween decor, and the color barely even appears at all throughout the movie, or in any of the decor I’ve ever owned! From a young age, I was perplexed as to why “red and black” were deemed the colors of the season in the lyrics to “This Is Halloween”, but as an adult I find the lack of orange actually really bothers me. This Is Halloween? More like This Is A Goth Kid’s Ink Drawing.
Also, Jack Skellington is not a pumpkin. I simply don’t understand how a character can be called The Pumpkin King, when they’re not a pumpkin! You ask me what I think a Pumpkin King should look like, my immediate mental image will be someone like Enoch, or the pumpkin in Sleepy Hollow that I call Lawrence. With that said, I do like the design of Pumpkin King Jack and still tend to collect merchandise of that variation of him, but I just don’t get why he couldn’t have stayed in that form throughout the story, if that it is his title.
These are, of course, nitpick-y things that really have no significance to the story itself, but I felt the need to express them. I think my biggest issue with Jack Skelllington is that he just doesn’t appreciate what he has! As someone who’s always longed to live in a world where Halloween is every day, where the mayor is literally knocking down your door on November 1st to start planning for next year, seeing Jack dissatisfied with such a thing is almost infuriating to me. Pumpkin or not, he is the king of Halloween Town and that is living the goddamn dream as far as I’m concerned. Seeing the literal king of Halloween Town decide he’d rather be Mr. Christmas makes me remember why I was so reluctant to say that Christmas was not, in fact, my favorite holiday, for so many years. And now, as someone active in the Halloween community on social media, Jack just reminds me of one of those people whose bio states “Halloween is life! Celebrate it every day!” and then turns their account into a two-month Christmas-fest the second the clock strikes midnight on November 1st. (Disclaimer: No shade is really being thrown here, I have no issue with anyone enjoying both holidays, but it can be excruciating for me personally, waiting for spooky posts to resume, as the sudden onslaught of Christmas tends to make my post-Halloween depression worse.)
But, on the other hand, I can also say, some part of me relates to Jack as well. I think we have all been in situations where we just don’t feel like ourselves for a bit, and think we need a new hobby or a new look or something out of the ordinary to fulfill us. On some level, I’ve been where Jack is for most of the movie. I’ve been in that place where I start to lose interest in the things that define me the most, and forget who I am for a bit. I mean, it would probably be a bit too heavy for a film marketed toward children, but I’d love to see more backstory behind his seemingly sudden onset of depression and weariness with Halloween/his identity. It probably would make it more understandable as to why the king of the pumpkin patch suddenly decided he’d rather be making snow angels. Because honestly, if you’ve ever struggled with any kind of mental issue, you can tell that Jack is really going through something here, and no matter how I feel about how he handled it, his epiphany toward the end of the movie, after he’s crashed in the graveyard and he suddenly remembers that he is the Pumpkin King and he just can’t wait until next Halloween, is pretty inspiring and empowering. It does get me pretty emotional, as once again, I have been there too. There’s nothing like having spent a long period in the doldrums, and then suddenly remembering how to be happy and fulfilled. I truly think maybe that’s why I didn’t “get” Nightmare as a kid, because on some level, it’s clearly a statement on depression and mental health in general, or at the very least, can be taken that way if you’ve been through it yourself.
I don’t think I’ll ever collect Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia again, but I do still occasionally watch and enjoy the movie. I still love most of the songs, I still have two Jack Skellington dolls (one regular, and one in Pumpkin King form) hanging from my curtain rod, and I think I’ll forever have a soft spot for Lock, Shock, and Barrel, but I think my period of borderline obsession with the movie and all things relating to it stemmed more from feeling like I had no other outlet for expressing my love for Halloween. I am glad the movie exists, as I feel it’s probably helped countless people like myself come into their own, but it will never again be the center of my personal Halloween universe.
But with that said, I kind of have the bug to watch it now. Perhaps, at the very least, I will make it an annual tradition, to help Halloween-ify this time of the year.
Stay spooky, my friends. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good fright..
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