We Don't Need No Stinking Halloween Decorations

Is there a position open for the Scrooge of Halloween? Because I'd like to apply.

Could everyone just stop it already with the Halloween decorations already?

The writing was on the wall when we had that week of summer-like weather spanning two weekends. People had their ladders out, stringing skeleton lights, hoisting hay bales onto their perfect front porches, balancing plump orange pumpkins on their front railings and placing mums in terra cotta pots on the steps. You know the ones. Those flowers that look so perfect that they look suspiciously artificial. And don't get me started on those little witches who look like they rode their broom right into a neighbor's fence and flattened themselves.


Don't forget the fake headstones with the pithy epitaphs:

Here Lies a man named Blake. He was bitten by his own pet snake.

I told you I was sick. 

Ben Dismembered. May he rest in pieces. 

Here Lies Mr. Jones. Now he's just a bag of bones.

I knew my kids would start in begging.

"Can we get some decorations?"

(No)

"Can we?"

(No)

"Can we? Pleeeeeeeeese?"

(Nooooooooo)

That's why I snapped this picture of the lamp just outside our back door:

 

"Here!" I yelled triumphantly, holding up my phone so they could see the picture. "This just proves that we have Halloween spirit!"

They gave me blank stares. Were they mocking me, or were they just glazed over from video games? I couldn't tell.

"Mom, that's not a decoration. That's a lamp."

"Ahhh, but the cobwebs!" Look at those! Those aren't your everyday big-box variety cobwebs made of polyester and nylon. Those are the real deal! There are even dead bugs in them!"

They just stared at me, incredulous. Yep, their mother had finally lost her marbles. I think one of them rolled their eyes—just a little bit. I heard an almost inaudible sigh.

Sometimes, my kids don't get my humor.

Sorry kids. There will be no inflatable Frankenstein in front of this house this year. Probably not next year, either.

And slaying perfectly good vegetables for Jack-o-Lanterns so squirrels can nibble and adolescents can smash them to smithereens? Don't get me started. That's a huge waste of a perfectly good pie.

No, sir. We're in a recession. Waste not, want not. A penny saved is a … well, you know the rest.

With this, I nominate myself as Scrooge of Halloween. I'll be the mean lady passing out kale chips and pencils to the Trick-or-Treaters.

Boo Humbug!