Happy “Falloween”

According to WordSpy:
Falloween (fawl.oh.WEEN) n. An extended celebration or observance of Halloween, often beginning several weeks before the day; the retail season that extends from the beginning of fall through Halloween and Thanksgiving in the U.S.

Out here in Massachusetts, it seems as though over half the people have some kind of season-oriented decoration up 100% of the year. Did this happen in the Bay Area? I don’t remember all this hoopla. How about in the rest of the country?

“Falloween” is a big one around here. It could be for the obvious reason that they have the nice fall colors. You see people putting out hay bales, corn stalks strapped to their mailbox, pumpkins scattered around the lawn, scarecrows, etc. It’s as though they live on a one-month micro-farm.

Halloween decorations can get elaborate. My favorite is the cottage that constructs a graveyard every year, with cobwebs all over and one corpse crawling half out of the ground. Residents of a new house that is not finished yet put a 10-foot diameter (I am guessing) purple spider above their door. It looked deflated a couple of days ago. I just hope it is not like Christmas lights and it actually comes down before Easter.

And don’t get me started on people who abandon neon-colored toys all over their yard…