Hallowed Eve//October 85th, 2024

I don't usually care all that much about Christmas.

Sure, I remember the feelings it evoked in childhood, but I made peace long ago with the fact that that can never be again.

However, somehow, this year has been very hard.

I'm not sure what it is. I suppose it's other factors in my life, things that have already been bringing me down, but I have found myself, this year, getting lost in the memories of my childhood Christmases. The excitement of waiting for Santa Claus, seeing certain relatives, anticipating certain gifts, and the reactions I'd get for gifts I chose myself for my loved ones...and it's not as easy to brush off.

I have said a few times this year, that all I want for Christmas is, well, my Christmas to come back. But it can't, for many reasons. The door has shut and locked on that part of my life, and sadly, there is no key. It's all long gone, never to be seen again except in memories.

This is the most depressed I can ever recall being at Christmas time. The most it's ever truly consumed me in my adult life. It's been difficult to think about anything else, especially this past week.

But tonight...Christmas Eve...tonight I passed a house with a few little pumpkins left on the stoop. Slightly snow-covered, they were the size of the pumpkins I would have chosen in childhood, at my mother's insistence, for the sake of saving money on something that was going to rot in a few months' time.

As I stared at these pumpkins, trying my best to remind myself of a magic that will never die, despite how sad this month has felt, that's when I noticed the faded smile on one of the pumpkins, drawn on with, most likely, a Sharpie marker.

This pumpkin, too, was so happy and bright, just two short months ago. And now he is lost, confused, in a snow-covered world surrounded by Christmas lights.

But that little, faded smile on that little, snow-covered pumpkin reminded me that I am not alone. And that was enough for me, this Christmas Eve.

I may not ever have another Christmas like the ones I remember.

But I have all the pumpkins in the world to remind me that magic still exists.

Stay spooky, my friends.

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Katie Pumpkinhead’s Pumpkin Patch

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