It’s that time of year again.
The time when Halloween “ends” to the layperson, and even some of the spookiest people take a two-month break to obsess over Christmas.
It’s the damndest thing, how, as early as the stroke of midnight on November first in some cases, the world transforms, seemingly forgetting that Halloween ever happened, into a sugar-coated, red-and-green, fairy-lit wonderland, while some of the leaves haven’t even fallen from their trees yet. It’s like a switch flips, the opposite of a blackout, and about ninety-percent of the world gets brainwashed.
I scroll through my social media feeds and wonder where my kindred spirits went. No, enjoying Christmas as well as Halloween does not make you any less of a spooky community member, but for some of us, it’s depressing to see. We gather to keep Halloween alive all year round, yet, if you were to scroll through my Instagram home page right now, you might get the impression that my favorite holiday is actually Christmas. There’s so little Halloween still to be seen.
And I’m not going to lie and say I enjoy this time.
It seems whenever I make a comment like this, people come out of the woodwork, either to my face or passive-aggressively on their own social media, and have to bleat, “Well, I love both.”
Well…that’s great if you do. Really, I’m happy for you.
But I, personally, in my adult life, genuinely find Christmas annoying, stressful, and depressing.
The music and movies grate on my every nerve. (The former is probably largely due to the fact that I’ve worked retail for almost sixteen years. And the latter, well…just reading the synopses of Hallmark Channel Christmas movies makes me want to bang my head against a wall. And don’t even get me started on Buddy the Elf. The only way I would ever willingly watch that character again is if it were a Terrifier crossover.) I hate crowds, so the hustle and bustle this time of year, and the fact that you can’t set foot inside any retail venue without people gift-shopping as though the world is about to end is one of my biggest pet peeves. I try not to set foot in a shopping mall from Black Friday until after New Year’s. And all the old family traditions that I used to love, that used to make Christmas enjoyable even though I loved Halloween the most, have been dead in the water since my twenties. I’d be lying if I said that didn’t depress me to my very core some years. I'd love to be able to enjoy Christmas like I did many years ago, but it just doesn't happen for me anymore and there's no use in trying to force it. It's like an old favorite toy or children's book that I've grown up and moved on from. And that's okay. It's sad at times, but I don't need it. I have what fulfills me and that's what matters.
The thing that bugs me though, is that people tend to think that, when I say something less-than-chipper about Christmas, that it's all part of some kind of act or something, that I'm being intentionally gloomy or something along those lines because I've painted myself as being so "hardcore Halloween" online.
First of all, my Halloween obsession is not some wannabe-influencer, pick-me girl facade. Halloween is literally who I am, what means the absolute world to me, the basis of my existence...ultimately the only thing I truly care about. You could take away any other aspect of me, and I could cling to my pumpkins and be fine. But you take Halloween away, and I'm left with nothing to steady me in the world. I could live a thousand lives and probably not ever find anything that speaks to me the way Halloween does. It's truly who I am, too big a part of me to ever let go of. The biggest part of me, really.
And second, my indifference toward Christmas really has very little to do with Halloween. I've never been of that, "If you like this, then you can't like that!" mindset...That was actually always a problem for me when I was younger because I've always just liked what I like, and, especially in my teenage years, everyone expects you to just fit into a box or a label. In my teens, I was developing an interest in horror but still liked to listen to pop music, and people around me made me feel like a freak for that, among other things. I would never want anyone else to feel that way, nor expect someone to give up one interest for another. But, I think I have the right to say that, although there's nothing truly wrong with it, seeing Halloween-community accounts go full-blown Christmas, in many cases the very second Halloween is "over", is off-putting and depressing to me. Halloween's end has always been a difficult thing for me to deal with...and it's even harder when, even the people you thought felt the same as you do, immediately put it on a shelf and move onto the next thing once October 31st has passed on the calendar. I mean, if that's what makes you happy, by all means, do it, it's your account, ultimately, but don't get offended if some people don't like it. Just because you enjoy both holidays, doesn't mean everyone else does. And it certainly doesn't mean we're all ready to move on the very second Halloween is over. Some of us need time to mourn.
And some of us are just trying to make it through until the world catches up to us once again. I've been told my whole life to "Cheer up, Christmas is coming", once my post-Halloween depression would hit, and it's never done me any good, even when I enjoyed it more. And two months of being beat over the head with it can be difficult. It's like the temporary manager we had at work earlier this year, who only played country music on the store radio. Country music is something I truly find intolerable, and for three months, for eight hours a day, six days a week, it was impossible to escape. That's how Christmas is starting to feel, and while I don't begrudge anyone the right to being excited about it and talking about it, I don't appreciate the snide comments, or the assumptions, toward those of us that don't feel the same way.
In short, wake me when it's January 2nd, and people start remembering their favorite holiday is Halloween.
Stay spooky, my friends, whatever you celebrate, or don't celebrate.
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