Sometimes I truly feel like this is the hardest point on the road back to Halloween.
I spend November mourning, and soaking up what is left of autumn. The remnants of Halloween still linger, though not as much as I wish that they would.
December brings the inevitable start of Christmas, despite that fact that many have been locked in since the second the clock struck midnight on November 1st. It becomes my battle, in a way, to keep Halloween alive when everyone is so distracted. To be a voice for those of us who, maybe, don't find Christmas time quite as merry. I am a safe space, not only for myself, but to the others that need Halloween as much as I do.
It's hard not to get distracted. As December descends into its final week before the supposed "big day", I get lost in nostalgia. I don't, necessarily, want to fall down the Christmas rabbit hole, the way Jack Skellington did, but I think about it. And the thought, the memory, becomes all-consuming for a few days, and then it comes. And it goes.
And then, nothing.
The world goes almost silent, it seems, when Christmas is over. For me, it feels like this huge hurdle to get over. And then it passes, and I realize, it's not actually the end of anything. Though thoughts now move away from Christmas, maybe back toward Halloween for those that took a little break from it, we're not as close as we feel like we should be.
Everything has come to a standstill.
I look around, at the end of December, and it's an almost hopeless feeling. Autumn has been over for about a week now, or earlier than that, if you believe the people who think Christmas starts on November 1st, but somehow, now, there's a finality to it.
Christmas has passed, but it's just one hurdle. Suddenly the road stretches out in front of me. All of winter left to go, and it's only just gotten started. All of spring. All of summer. Summer...the very thought makes me cringe, even though it's a strangely hopeful time, when things feel so close and yet so far.
I walk past the lake, and see one of the cornstalks that delighted me in October still standing. Against a winter fog, it is a very strange dreamscape, almost as if I'm seeing the ghost of a loved one wave at me from just beyond my reach.
Everything was so alive, just a short time ago. Yet now it feels like years have passed, and will have to pass again, before it comes back around.
I walk past still-decorated houses, and somehow the enthusiasm for Christmas seems less than Halloween. One house has Jack Skellington and the Abominable Snowman out front; some of the spookiest characters I can think of relating to Christmas. Is this their way of holding on? Of giving in, without giving in?
Is wanting to live in a world of eternal Halloween really that strange? Or rare?
I smile at the pumpkins, still alive, though maybe starting to rot, among lights and snow piles. My war buddies, they seem like. How have we made it this far?
I envy them, almost. They will sink into the earth before too long, leaving seeds to raise new pumpkins before next autumn. But I must remain, the eternal pumpkin not quite cut out for this world, and try to fit in.
Soon, at least, a new year will begin. No more "next Halloween", but "this Halloween". We'll finally be out of the 300s on the countdown...yet somehow it feels further than ever.
Winter is better than summer. But sometimes I long for the latter, not for what it feels like, but for the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't find darkness depressing. Quite the opposite, actually.
But I will always search for the beacon that leads me back to Halloween.
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