by Rob Perez

The Decorative Element

For some reason, many holidays have a decorative element to them. Some put bunnies and pastel eggs out for Easter. The Fourth of July is the only time when good people should be permitted to talk about bunting. And, Christmas is, of course, the green and red elephant in the room that we shall presently ignore.

Which brings me to Halloween.

Halloween decorations have long been a part of the season. Scarecrows have been evoking indifference in crows (and others) for thousands of years. And, since they’re easier to carve than cranberries, people have been transforming the pumpkin fruit into jack-o-lanterns for centuries. More recently, folks have been adding, a 7-foot witches, 10-foot goblins, and a 12-foot skeleton named Skelly to their yard.

I get that decorations are “fun”. And I begrudge no household of fun. (Okay, I begrudge some households of fun but only because begrudging is fun!) But I’d like to know when do Halloween decorations cross the line from fun and enter into a new category altogether? I’m just saying: this is starting to get scary.

For example, in my own very yard, yea, the entrance to mine own castle, there is a sign that reads: Enter if you dare, three homemade tombstones (with respective epitaphs: I’ll be back; I’d rather be playing tennis; I told you I was sick), a wooden black cat, two large plastic spiders, and a three-foot animatronic skeleton sporting a reaper’s cloak that we’ve named George.

“George fell over.”

“Please pick him up.”

What have I become? What have we become? Oh, the horror!

The enormous spiders decorating our house are especially rich considering eleven months of the year I’m clearing the place of spiders and their sticky, ubiquitous webs. Are the webs we weave really supposed to suggest something macabre? For me they just scream neglect.

I’m haunted by the idea that there will be more decorations still yet. Surely, it’s only a matter of time before someone comes home with small, decorative pumpkins to place inside our home. Shortly after that, larger pumpkins will arrive and my children, my own kin will carve those pumpkins and add even more decorations to the outside of our home?!

Mercifully, squirrels and chipmunks also enjoy the carved pumpkins. They nibble the whittled fruit as soon as it is presented to the world. It will be lucky to last a week. George, on the other hand, our 3-foot-tall skeleton/reaper, has been blown over by a persistent, occasionally howling wind countless times and yet his body and soul are, it seems, unbreakable.

“George fell over again.”

“Was he drinking?”

“What?”

“Please right the ship.”

Is this frightful charade for ourselves? Our neighbors? The hereafter?

And where, I would like to know, might this all end? Sure, November 1st approaches with an unhurried, languorous saunter that many call October. Only then, when others have retired to the dreams in their bed, I will, under the cover of night, banish those many, monstrous decorations to whence they came: the garage.

If only this were the true end. Alas, I fear, it’s just the beginning. Surely it will only be a matter of time before someone pulls out, sigh, the cornucopia. And how long before green and red elephant emerges? The inevitability of it all is indeed scary, terrifying, frightful.

“George fell over again. Should I pick him up?”

“No. Maybe now, at last, he can rest.”