The Skeletons In My Closet Get More Action than Jesus

My family is built for Halloween

At some point in the middle of August, creepy things start appearing around the house. The beach and picnic knickknacks begin to transform into more sinister ones at a barely perceptible clip. A clever little gravestone over here, a pithy cauldron over there.

Amazon packages show up on a regular basis at our house, but instead of new flip-flops or beach-scene picture frames, the sinister smiling boxes contain whimsical coffin-shaped snack bowls or spiders floating in a mysterious glowing liquid.

The change makes a slow crescendo over several weeks. If you live in my house, you barely notice it. But the slow creep is there. It happens right under your nose.

Our collection of spooky decorations has been growing considerably for 15 years now, and it’s overtaking what used to be the mother of all holiday decorating seasons: Christmas.

In the middle of September, when the sun sinks a little lower in the sky and the days get shorter, a formal request comes in from corporate to bring up the 6 hefty bins of traditional Halloween decor. And since I don’t want to get dinged again for my late TPS reports, I go down to the garage to unearth the decorations.

I drag out bins full of witches and jack-o-lanterns. I heave boxes of ceramic haunted houses around that hold candles for chilly autumn nights. There are pumpkin inflatables and motion-activated ghosts that dance to the theme song from The Adams Family. We already have a black cat with extra toe beans, so we have that covered, and we provide a spooky little scratching hut.

There’s a life-sized skeleton named Skeletor that I’m still not used to who spends the winter and spring months directly on top of a large Santa from the 1960s. I’m not sure when their affair began, but it must get lonely in there, and I don’t judge. It still throws me for a loop when I see him in the garage, but it gets even worse when he makes his way into the house.

Skeletor can be found lounging around from August until the middle of November. Sometimes it’s so warm in the fall we’ll find him out by the pool. But Baby Jesus only gets to stretch out in his manger for a couple of weeks, then he goes back into his box in the corner of the garage.

This family is built for Halloween.

Every year the same thing happens. Halloween gets more than two months of attention, while the Christmas decorations come out for a few weeks if they’re lucky. They’re usually on display only slightly longer than it takes to get them out and assembled.

Despite my Catholic upbringing, I’m not religious at all, and I don’t really care about Christmas. I’m more of an agnostic these days, but call me a traditionalist when I complain that the evil spirits get more action than Jesus on his birthday.

Blasphemy!

Poor plastic Santa, who got a new 300W light bulb last year just so I could annoy my neighbor, only spends a couple of weeks outside. And the Peanuts® Nativity set? Snoopy has to play a lamb, Lucy plays Mary, and Charlie Brown of all people plays Joseph.

Charlie Brown and Lucy playing Joseph and Mary? What in the name of Joseph and Mary is going on here? This has the 1960s written all over it. We even have the bonus pack with Pigpen playing the part of the shepherd. There’s a missed opportunity here for Woodstock to play Baby Jesus, IMHO. Thanks, Hallmark.

This kitschy little porcelain set only adorns the living room shelves for a couple of weeks after Beetlejuice vacates the premises, and will replaced by some dreary snowflakes on December 26th.

Frosty the Snowman rides the bench while Dracula gets the spotlight?

Not today, Satan.

Besides, I’m still waiting for the cast of What We Do In The Shadows to come out with their nativity set. Imagine Colin Robinson, the energy vampire, bringing a life insurance policy for Baby Jesus.

Anyway, this year I’m fighting back. I’m going to start slipping in little Christmas tchotchkes starting in October.

A tiny Santa hat on Skeletor would look pretty festive, I think. And if I get some winter tires and a little red bow on the hearse, I think it would add a nice bit of festivity to the macabre holiday.

We have a giant black Star Wars wreath with the entire collection of coordinated ornaments on it, and I can’t see why that doesn’t come out for spooky season. If I’m going to believe in a magic baby, it may as well be Luke Skywalker. I’ll bet he could kick Jesus’s ass in a lightsaber battle.

Walking on water? Healing people? The Force can do all that stuff. Yoda can lift an X-Wing out of the swamp, command lightning, and speak to the dead. Maybe this is why Christmas loses out to Halloween every year. The story of The Force is more plausible than the story of how Mary got pregnant.

In addition to the black-cat-jumping-out-of-a-pumpkin inflatable for the front yard, we have an 8-foot Stay-Puft Marshmallow man from Ghostbusters, and I’m thinking he’ll look pretty nifty with a pretty Christmas wreath around his neck instead of that stupid sailor bib. No one will care that he’s an unholy marshmallow summoned into existence by a Sumerian demigod named Gozer. He just looks like a happy little snowman.

Stores start putting out holiday decorations in September anyway, so I’ll have to start sneaking some of my favorite holiday classics into my wife’s Halloween mix. I doubt she’d notice Isaac Hayes singing What The Hell Child Is This right after Thriller. Or Master Shake singing I Sure Hope I Don’t Have To Beat Your Ass This Christmas right before Time Warp. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is festive enough for all seasons.

If I’m forced to celebrate Halloween for three months, we can spare a little more time for our lord and savior, Luke Sk…err, Jesus Christ.

I don’t even mind tying more of the holidays together. There’s no reason the black Star Wars Christmas wreath can’t come out early and spend the spooky season with us. While we’re at it, we should invite St. Patrick with a small sailing vessel full of cheap green beer, and the Easter Bunny — another irreverent, dodgy character — and have a summer picnic for Hannukah dinner, complete with watermelon and a cornucopia of waxed vegetables.

The older I get the less I care when the decorations come out. As time moves faster and faster with age, they all blend together in a seasonal blur.

And if it makes my partner happy to have whimsical but morbid reminders of our inevitable demise around all the time, it’s fine with me. A little whimsy never hurt anyone.

I just hope both teams have fun.