Holiday Megalopolis

We have entered the dreadful holiday season. But let me explain—I love the holidays. It is the impertinent arrival, weeks ahead of time, of lawn ornaments, store window displays, catalogues, and email “spam” holiday promotions that rub against my anticipation of those special occasions. The effect is like a hard rain falling on our driveway, washing some of it into the ditch.

Halloween, for instance. You may know that Halloween is now the second-largest commercial holiday behind Christmas. October 31st is still days away, but I have been driving by front yard gravestones, zombies, plastic pumpkins, dangling skeletons, for weeks. Far be it from me to bite anyone in the neck, draining their enthusiasm, but in this part of the world, I contend that Halloween should not rise from the infernal regions until, at least, our docks are out of the water. As it is, we were barely back to work after Labor Day when the candy corn appeared on the shelves.

It is within the power of marketing to transform any inherently good and joyful thing into one of those over-muscled people, slick with oil, wearing a Speedo. The Super Bowl has become this, but, mercifully, we don’t get to know the contenders until shortly before the event, which confines a lot of the pre-game hype to two weeks. No such “Who’s it going to be?” restraint exists in the case of Christmas. The only question becomes, how early will the commercial season begin? (I predict right after the last carved pumpkin gets tossed into the woods.)

You’ve asked yourself, I am sure, when did it become okay to launch the Christmas holiday before Thanksgiving? Once upon a time, the deal was: Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, at the end of which Santa comes riding in his sleigh, officially signaling the start of the shopping season.

We do better with those boundaries. Scarcity is also a powerful marketing tool. Too much of a good thing can obscure its fine qualities. In this part of the world, where spring fades to summer, fades to fall, fades to winter, we know the value each season creates for the next. If global warming allows summer to extend its influence, I won’t be counting myself lucky. I will miss sweater weather, and cozy wood stoves. A source of my identity will have been wiped out—never mind what gets wiped out in addition.

Speaking of which, the propane heater in my studio is coming on now. (I am wearing a sweater.) Studio is the name we give the space above the garage—a name I’m getting used to, instead of office. I had an office. I did work in my office, which included writing, but in the form of memos and business proposals. I do not write memos or business proposals anymore. I write essays about how the holiday marketing megalopolis is connecting Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas in the way that Boston connects to Providence. My writing output, today, seems inappropriate to having an office. As a semi-retired person, an office would imply having a room to scope used tractors on Facebook Marketplace, and pay the electric bill. The word studio does a better job of attaching to my ramblings about holiday commercial excess.

Anyway, the heater is coming on, and the door must be shut, which means Huckleberry and I have lost a bit of independence. He must now wait at the door to come in or out, and I must get up to do it. This condition will last until at least mid-April, and it gets tiresome, compounded by the fact that Huck does not cry or wail at the door to come in. I have to check periodically to see if he is there. Sometimes I don’t hear his footsteps, and discover him shivering patiently in the dwindling afternoon light. I should get one of those Apple security cameras to mount in the hallway that can broadcast his presence to my laptop. I’ll wager I can pick one up as part of some pre-holiday, gizmo sale in a matter of two or three more weeks.

Published in the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript, October 21, 2o25