A Daily Diary Explaining My Refusal to Take Down the Halloween Decorations
By: Andrew Berkowitz
Tags: Holidays, Halloween, Humor, Satire

November 1

Halloween was grand! I’m still basking in the afterglow of last night’s trick-or-treating. So many adorable costumes — and scary ones, too! I almost ran out of candy. Wouldn’t that have been a scandal.

November 2:

Pumpkins just scream “Autumn,” don’t they? Such an allegorical vegetable. I bet next year I can get another seventy of them into the driveway if I park the car on the street.

November 3

My neighbor asked this morning how long I was planning to leave those vampire bat cutouts on the living room window. Fun fact: those silhouettes actually prevent birds from crashing into the glass, so maybe permanently! The life-sized Dracula cutout probably saves bird lives, too.

November 4

Look, I spent two weeks painstakingly browsing Amazon for just the right medical-grade, full-size pirate skeletons (two-pack for $479.99) and I’m not quite ready to stow them in the basement yet. It’s not like the skeletons are blocking access to the community mailbox unit, especially if you turn sideways and kind of shuffle past the bayonet.

November 5

I want to point out that people leave Christmas decorations up until New Year’s Day. That’s like a full week past Christmas! How are colorful twinkle lights okay but a Screaming Banshees 250-Watt Halloween Sound Machine With Integrated Subwoofer™ somehow inappropriate? It only shrieks at night thanks to the built in daylight sensor. It’s not like it’s running 24/7. Puzzling.

November 6

Taking down the Halloween decorations today would be a tacit admission that Thanksgiving is just around the corner. And frankly, if the election recount isn’t done by then, there’ll be bloodshed when Uncle Wayne and Aunt Peg show up for turkey dinner. Hard pass.

November 7

I’m livid. Why do the Jews get eight nights for Hanukkah but when I leave my Halloween decorations up for not even eight nights and I get an angry letter taped to the front door implying that a giant inflatable spider somehow impacts property values?!? It’s not a cheap Chinese cartoon spider, either. This is American-made with lifelike genuine polyester leg hairs. I’m not anti-Semitic or anything, but can you imagine the outrage if someone told the Jews to take down their inflatable menorahs. Insane.

November 8

I STILL HAVE CANDY LEFT! WHAT IF WE GET MORE TRICK-OR-TREATERS?

November 9

Know your history! Traditional All Saints Day was a harvest festival. And you can’t very well hold a harvest without a scythe, axe, machete, dagger, chainsaw, etc, etc. If my front yard harvest accoutrements make you “fearful for your children’s safety,” as someone anonymously told Channel 7 news last night, perhaps you should think about where your wheat comes from. It doesn’t magically harvest itself. Ponder that while you’re anonymously eating a sandwich today!

November 10

I don’t mean to keep harping on the Christmas thing, but you could conceivably leave a Christmas tree up all year round and nobody would blink an eye as long as you took off the lights and tinsel and stuff. Yet somehow maintaining two gravesites near the condo swimming pool is considered “untenable,” even though graves are just a natural landscape feature? What if I were to remove the realistic decomposing body mannequins? Would that make it OK? Corpses are basically just Halloween tinsel. I’m almost out of the Rotting Body Stench Fluid® anyway.

November 11

According to the internet, a pumpkin can last for up to twelve weeks. TWELVE WEEKS! There are starving children in Africa who would murder for a pumpkin right now. You want me to just throw all of these away? Who’s the monster now?

November 12

So let me get this straight: It’s OK to put up Halloween decorations a month ahead of time, but you leave them up for not even two weeks afterwards and it’s a federal offense? I mean, the whole notion of a “calendar” is simply a human construct. The universe doesn’t know anything about “weeks” or “months.” Releasing poisonous sea snakes into the condo swimming pool is good Halloween fun on October 12 but some kind of affront to the cosmos on November 12? My mind is blown.

November 13

Even the cable company has a two-week grace period to pay your bill. I’m just saying. The cable company!

November 14

Did I take down my Halloween decorations today? Yes. Did I do it because I was pressured into doing so? No. It simply felt like the right time. Instead, I have put up a Nativity scene. Mary and Joseph are skeletons. Baby Jesus is a werewolf. The wise men are zombies. They’re bringing a gift of gold, Frankenstein and myrrh. Merry Christmas.