A recent study confirmed that Halloween in St. Louis lasted way too long last year. The findings were determined by a survey that I made up and was the sole participant of, but the results remain conclusive nonetheless.
Like most emotionally stunted adults with the maturity level of a hot dog, Halloween is my favorite holiday, making me an authority on the subject. I love Halloween so much that I went trick or treating until I was well past the age I should have been (let’s just say I could legally drive). I worked at the OG Johnnie Brock’s Dungeon for years. And now that I have little kids, talk of coordinating Halloween costumes goes on pretty much year round (this year’s theme is 1980s David Cronenberg movies).
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But talking about the holiday and celebrating it are two different things. Every year it seems people start dusting the cobwebs off their, uh, cobwebs earlier and earlier. Last year the first skeleton in my neighborhood went up before Labor Day, and it wasn’t long before everyone else was putting up their own silly decorations, like plastic gravestones and political yard signs.
What everyone seems to forget, though, is that Halloween is a fall holiday, and summer in St. Louis lasts through October. So while it’s tempting to jumpstart the Halloween season during those first cool September days, there are always at least three more weeks of 90-degree weather and mosquito swarms to endure.
But the Powers That Be still insist that we start celebrating earlier. We’re currently in the hottest month of summer, yet the shelves at Michael’s and Hobby Lobby are fully stocked with Halloween decor. Local breweries are already rolling out their 200 percent ABV pumpkin ales. Seasonal Spirit Halloween stores have even opened in Arnold and Fenton, despite the holiday being nearly a quarter of a year away.
And because the season continues to be stretched out, we keep adding things to it. For example, kids used to go trick or treating exclusively on Halloween. Now they go about 400 times before that. There are neighborhoods that have their own special trick or treat nights. There are storefront trick-or-treat events in places like Webster Groves. Then you’ve got things like Boo at the Zoo, Grant’s Farm Halloween Nights, and a million other overstimulating events that skipping out on results in your kids threatening to call Child Protective Services.
And then there’s trunk or treat, a completely unnecessary event that I assume was invented by Big Candy and/or our foreign adversaries. Trunk or treat is basically a mandatory school event where little kids hang out in a parking lot and do the thing we’ve told them their entire lives not to do: take candy from strangers in vans. This is somehow often billed as a safe alternative to regular trick or treating, but what actually happens is that families do both, forcing parents to spend twice the amount of money on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
And what’s going on with the sudden uptick in Halloween lights? It’s bad enough I risk my life twice a year putting up and taking down Christmas lights, but now you want me to double that risk in October? We put up Christmas lights because winter sucks and we need a little cheer to counter the deadness outside. But autumn doesn’t have that problem, it’s beautiful out there, it doesn’t need gussying up.
If we can learn anything from Christmas, it’s that we need some sort of buffer to counteract the spread of Halloween. Christmas has Thanksgiving to run defense, preventing pine trees from appearing in people’s houses until at least late November (unless you shop at Michael’s, which is currently selling a Halloween tree!!!!!!). We need a holiday at the end of September to create the same kind of barrier.
And we have one! The confusingly named Oktoberfest is right there at the end of September to help our cause. We just need to commercialize it. Not by a lot, but enough to get the kids excited. Maybe we can get Sabrina Carpenter to cover some polka songs and also let the kids drink kid beer (kid beer is beer for kids) while they dance around the maypole, or whatever it is that you do for that holiday.
All I’m really asking is that we keep Halloween in October. If 31 days is not enough for you, fine, you can have fun sweating through your shorts installing your unusually large collection of lawn inflatables in September. But under no circumstances should anyone ever buy a pumpkin beer in August. We are still in Aperol spritz season, people.
And if you’re one of those folks who leaves your 12-foot skeleton up all year, putting little bunny ears on it when it’s Easter or whatnot, please know that we’re being patient with you, but we really wish you wouldn’t, mostly due to property value concerns. But if you’re going to keep it out anyway, get some lederhosen on that thing! It’s almost Oktoberfest!
