Summerween

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

Never underestimate the power of a store display. As a kid, nothing ruined my summer like seeing “Back to School” in big yellow letters above shelves of pencils, notebooks and glue. I imagine it was a similar feeling to hearing a tornado siren during a birthday party — it was a sign that fun was coming to a screeching halt, and disaster was right on its heels.

That feeling only ever got worse. Not to be dramatic, but as a socially anxious teenager with undiagnosed OCD who averaged two hours of sleep because of my homework load, high school represented the worst years of my life. The first slog until Thanksgiving break would drag on and on, slowly draining the life from me. One of my only consolations was (you guessed it) a store display of a different color — orange, purple and black, to be precise.

After the stores take down the back-to-school horrors, they always put up the Halloween wonders: jack-o’-lanterns, skeletons and fake gore.

Back then, the stores’ Halloween displays gave me so much joy that, for a moment, I could pretend I wasn’t a depressed, sleep-deprived teen. I was a little kid getting ready to carve pumpkins and barter my Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for my friends’ Butterfingers. I get that same feeling to this day when the Halloween decor comes out.

Reader Publisher Ben Olson is not so appreciative of the early start to spooky season, as he wrote in his Sept. 4 “Bouquets and Barbs” column. I get the sentiment — as a kid, I would have lobbied for a law banning back-to-school displays until the Friday before the school year. Now, as I pick up some “bleeding” candles and salad fixings in the same shopping trip, I realize I’ve changed my tune.

Yes, the displays are promoting consumerism. They’re stores; they’re meant to entice you into buying unnecessary things. But just because the plastic severed arm I’ve set on the windowsill every October since first grade isn’t utilitarian doesn’t mean that it isn’t playing an important role in my life.

The way I see it, Halloween is an excuse to do things that make us happy and to be unapologetically ourselves. Almost everyone wants to be goofy or nerdy or goth every once and a while, either through clothing or home decor, and not be judged for it. The fake fangs and spiders are great, but people love them for the emotions they evoke — freedom, nostalgia, anticipation and even fear — not the plastic shell. 

It makes sense to me, then, that Halloween decorations appear earlier and earlier each year. We want to stretch that joyful feeling out as long as possible, and stores have picked up on that.

I’m not saying play “Spooky Scary Skeletons” — or “Jingle Bells,” for that matter — over the radio in June, but if you want to have a “Summerween” beach party, I say go for it. Likewise, if a store has a big enough clientele to support it, I’d invite them to have dedicated holiday sections all year long. I’ll buy a skull goblet in May or a snowglobe in August with a smile on my face, and I’ll proudly display it in my home whenever I want, no matter the season.

We’ve been living through a rough 25 years (at least), and it’s taken a toll on people’s mental health. To survive the barrage of bad news and make the world better, we have to be happy enough to want to change things. It’s hard to get out and volunteer, learn or grow as a person when you’re taking an 11 a.m. depression nap. So buy the 12-foot-tall Home Depot skeleton and watch Casper if it gets you out of bed. Do whatever it is that makes you happy, then go out and share that feeling with everyone. Sometimes, that’s all we can do.

Happy Summerween, Sandpoint.