everyday is halloween

i'm a lifelong horror geek.  even when scary shit really scared the shit out of me i was attracted to the terrors and thrills of those things that go bump in the night.  but i'm an older man now.  i've seen lots of horror movies.  i've toured allegedly haunted landscapes, houses, and buildings.  i've done haunt attractions.  and i am an avid listener of tales told around the campfire.  think about that last one.  have you been in the woods after the sun dropped below the horizon and dark is not just the absence of light but dark is utter black, a kind of void where you can't see the proverbially hand in front of your face?  if you haven't -- and i don't mean to sound snide, but the early 21st C is a much different place than even the late 20th C, and i think we have a whole couple of generations who have not experienced darkness, not as an abstract idea, but as a palpable thing.  to be told ghost stories around the campfire when the light from the fire penetrates the woods only just so far.  an enveloping void surrounds you.  if you have to get up from the campfire to take a piss and step away from the circle of firelight you must have your wits about you for you can get lost even if you are just 10 meters away from your camp. and you think that the blackness that envelopes you as a worn thing might contain, well, anything, including the monsters that live in your head.  that is fucking scary.

i posit something even scarier, a holiday out of season.  today we did some shopping.  after going to our local IKEA -- i confess, for no reason at all, i am an honorary swede, it is my second our third culture because i married in to it [which means nothing at all, but to me] -- we stopped at the the home depot.  the U.S. is dotted with the same big box stores, walmart, petco, home depot et al., that i can't say 'local home depot' with a straight face.  ah, that is the nature of our mercantile culture that all the stores in the U.S. are the same wherever you are.  well, anyway, at home depot it is christmas.  i shit you not.  the halloween displays are still up, after all this is still october, but the bigger displays are for christsmas.

i shat a brick.  i mean for fucks sake it is not even halloween yet and there before my eyes are evidence of a winter wonderland.

fuck me sideways.  that is scarier than a good ghost story at night around the campfire.  and yes, i am a person who loves halloween.  halloween lives in my heart 24/7.  i even have a jack o'lantern inked on my shoulder.  and yet, i think christmas is a magical holiday.  not because i believe in the power of hay-zeus, but i think people, humanity at large, needs a time that is special to it that demands we have peace on earth and good will to human kind.  in other words, i love christmas, not as a believer, but as a holiday for people to celebrate the wonder of our fellow human beings. 

but give the holidays their own time and due.  christmas in october is not christmas.  when you find its physical trappings being sold before winter you -- i -- think upon a kind of commercial cynicism that one can argue is endemic in our culture.  i find that scary.

furthermore, old saint nick was there too

you know he is always watching you.

boo