The Halloween Season is here. For those of you who cling to summer as if your life depended on it, this is a sad but true fact. You cannot turn back the clock. The season is thrust upon us with unavoidable reality. It may still be 80 degrees outside but the signs are everywhere. You’re house is suddenly quiet because your kids have returned to school. Also, I bet you were late for work several days in a row because you’re still trying to time it so you don’t get stuck behind the school buses. But the kids returning to school isn’t even the most obvious sign that autumn is upon us. It’s all of the fall merchandising in our retail stores.
By mid August the summer items at my local supermarket were on clearance and picked clean to make way for an entire isle of Halloween candy. I can’t walk into drug stores, or big box retailers without being overcome by the smell of pumpkin and apple pie scented candles, and every farm market is selling with mums and winter cabbage. Last week, at my local pharmacy, as I rounded the corner toward the isle that sells back to school supplies I noticed it was completely transformed into a fall shopping fest. There were autumn wreaths, scarecrows, candles, plaques, candy, ceramic jars shaped like pumpkins, squash and gourds, and all of the yellow, brown, burgundy, and deep green I could handle while wearing a sundress and flip flops. I still hadn’t bought school supplies!! Now I need Halloween costumes and candy. Somebody stop the clock!
So even though it takes me some time, I accept what all the store merchandising is telling me. Summer is ending. September 21 may be the first official day of fall but summer is now unofficially over. Soon, I’ll feel that first morning chill that will clearly define the start of autumn. As I sadly say farewell to the warmth of the sun I look forward to our cache of Halloween candy, the warming fires in the patio fire pit and big roomy sweaters that hide the Halloween candy weight. And just as I have come to accept all that Halloween stuff in the stores so early I also accept the fact that I truly do love autumn and Halloween even if I have to give up my flip flops.