I’m bombarded with Christmas ads and it's not even Halloween. When I was young (a long time ago), stores wouldn’t advertise a holiday until the previous one ended. Thanksgiving ads and merchandise started after Halloween, and Christmas ads after Thanksgiving. Now Christmas ads are popping up on TV and social media in October or earlier.
I understand craft stores advertising holidays early. People who handcraft Christmas presents have to start early. But why are all the other stores advertising Christmas and putting up Christmas displays?
OK, some people like to be prepared. Vanna White shops for Christmas year round, looking for sales on special gifts for special people. But there can’t be that many Vanna Whites out there.
Besides. I stopped giving gifts about twenty years ago. Now it’s gift cards. Partly because it was so hard to figure out what everyone wanted and partly because I blew it one year by mislabeling the gifts for my two nephews. The younger one cried forever when he had to swap gifts with his brother. I probably should have just kept my mouth shut when I saw the mistake but I didn’t think the 10-year-old brother would appreciate a pull toy. I don’t buy gifts at all now that all my nieces and nephews are over 21. It’s easier and no one cries over Visa cards.
Speaking of jumping the gun on holidays, my friend and I went to craft stores in June to look for a summer wreath for her front door. The store was filled with Halloween stuff. Not a summer wreath in sight.
It wasn’t until later that I learned about a new holiday called "Summerween" – Halloween in the summer. On the Disney Channel TV show, residents of that fictional town celebrate Halloween twice a year. The official day is June 22, but you can celebrate it whenever you want during summertime. So the stores were prepared for Summerween.
According to the internet, Summerween adapts some of the traditional Halloween activities –; e.g., watermelon carving instead of pumpkin carving. But wouldn’t a carved watermelon turn to mush in the hot summer days? And wouldn't every ant in the neighborhood make a beeline to that sugary treat?
Summerween experts warn people not to copy Halloween activities but to create new ones based on spooks and summer activities such as a skeleton pool party. Eek. Imagine floating into a skeleton bone during your backstroke. It would be a bone-chilling surprise and painful, too!
Speaking of skeletons, Bill Pyles, an Oxford, Ohio resident, displays different scenes year-round in his front yard with a skeleton family. In addition to full- and child-sized skeletons. He sometimes includes dogs and even a horse. He said he’s received hate mail about his skeleton scenes; “you are an instrument of the devil,” or “You try to make death look good.” But one day he received a note from a cancer patient who drove by his display on the way to her cancer treatments. “Your bone family and what they are up to are the highlight of my journey.” So he surprised her with a special display on the last day of her treatments: the bone family cheering her on. See the story on CBS Evening News.
Don’t get me wrong. I love Halloween. It’s a fun flight into fantasy. Plus the vibrant colors and whimsical decorations lift my spirits. I love the kids in their costumes, full of energy and joy. I suspect for lots of kids, the candy isn’t the real thrill. Wearing their costumes they don a new character – they transform into Spiderman or a fairy princess for the night. I’ll never forget the eight-year-old dressed as a Crest toothpaste box. I told her how cute her outfit was and asked if I could take her picture. She beamed, “My daddy made my costume.” Her daddy was a dentist and the costume looked like a real Crest toothpaste box. Unfortunately, I’ve lost the picture.
I miss the trick-or-treaters. They can’t visit our senior community. I got more fun out of seeing the kids in their costumes than in dressing up myself.
But celebrating Halloween twice a year? It seems like it would dilute the fun. On the other hand, it would be great to use decorations twice. Despite all the decorations in the stores in June, I didn’t see decorations on lawns. So maybe Summerween hasn’t caught on in SW Floria.
Speaking of holidays, yesterday (October 26) was National Chicken Fried Steak Day. Chicken Fried Steak is made from cube steak coated like fried chicken, fried, then smothered in white country gravy. Yum!
“This dish is a total miracle. It's crispy. It's creamy. It's sinfully indulgent,” says Ree Drummond, The Pioneer Woman blog. I agree Chicken Fried steak is one of my 10 favorite dishes, maybe because I love country gravy and I eat Chicken Fried Steak so rarely (calories, fat, and it’s hard to find well-prepared CFS).
If you are ever in Tulsa, OK, Nelson’s Buffeteria has some of the best Chicken Fried in the country. Originally located in downtown Tulsa, it was a guilty indulgence when I traveled to Tulsa several times a year to teach classes. Each dinner included 2 sides (I’d get green beans and hush puppies), cornbread AND a dinner roll. They had wonderful pies and peach cobbler. The fact that it's still going strong 50 years after I used to visit is testimony to their popularity.
Enjoy your Halloween. Click here to view my Halloween photos. Our community’s various departments made the pumpkins for a pumpkin decorating contest. .
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