Despite a Christian obligation to love one’s enemies, I despise three things in this world: FIBs, jelly-filled donuts, and Halloween’s encroachment on autumn. But the bosses won’t let me fire Jeff Blehar, and jelly-filled donuts are inconsequential when the rest of the bakery’s display is so good to man and beast. So it’s with Halloween that I reserve the zombified lion’s share of dudgeon.
There should be consequences for making one’s neighborhood look and feel like Derry, Maine.
If I ran the zoo, any home with a 15-foot skeleton on display — the one with the rictus grin leering at passersby — before October 30 would be the block’s designated drop for the snowplows from November through May. Come April, congrats, their property taxes would have doubled since they wanted to make their side of the street a terror for schoolkids.
Beyond the off-putting visual element, this newest generation of lawn décor is unforgivably gauche — lazy and derivative. If the totality of your contribution to a holiday is an object from Home Depot that runs $299 on sale, consider yourself a boor. It’s the lawn equivalent of abandoning one’s cart at the grocery store or watching a movie sans headphones in public.
Adults should leave Halloween to the under-14s and put their festive energies and money toward snowblower maintenance, functional porch lights, and having better candy on hand for Halloween.
Jumbo skeletons are perverse not because of what they are but because they tell the world just how many postpubescent children own homes.