Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Good Grief, I know why Linus thinks there is a Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.

The one thing I’ve always loved about the “ber” months (Sept, Oct, Nov & Dec) is how the chill in the air puts everyone in a nostalgic mood especially for the major holidays of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.    Everyone wants to remember the joy they had as a child for those holidays scarfing down gluttonous amounts of candy and cookies, decorating the home and especially for the past 60 years or so taking time out of your crazy holiday schedules to watch and become even more nostalgic over those holiday specials that aired on broadcast TV when we were children like “It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown”[i][ii]

I think part of the reason why Peanuts resonate to all generations is because Charles Schulz’s philosophy is timeless yet there is always something new.  For example, Linus Van Pelt’s belief in a Great Pumpkin can be a metaphor for all those out there who believe all kind of crazy and untrue things but still cling to them like Flat Earthers or those who think the 1969 moon landing was a Hollywood movie done by director Stanley Kubrick.   Schutz believed that sometimes you have to stand behind your beliefs no matter how crazy others may view them per a recent interview I saw on YouTube from Charles Schuz’ widow.    This could explain why even crazy and untrue theories seem to continue to be promulgated throughout the internet because of the enthusiastic beliefs of those behind them like how Linus knows that The Great Pumpkin “Tries Harder” than Santa to spread Halloween holiday joy.

But one has to ask, why does Linus think there is such a thing as The Great Pumpkin to begin with?   I could propose a new Film Theory for MatPat to explore where Linus may have been a victim of Jack Skellington’s Nightmare before Christmas run and then waste the rest of this blogpost on a wild tangent about how Christmas is clearly the better of the two holidays and why the Pumpkin King of Halloween would rather celebrate that day than his own.   But I’m not going to.  Schutz in 1959 simply thought it was a cute idea to have a little kid like Linus Van Pelt mix up the holidays of Christmas and Halloween and somehow conflate the two together into the myth of The Great Pumpkin.  And, after a recent trip to Wal-Mart I know why poor Linus is mixing up the Pumpkin King with Santa Claus. 

It’s because I’m beginning to see stores look a lot more like Christmas than Halloween even before a single tree leaf has turned orange.  With the Christmas shopping season starting earlier and earlier every year it’s no wonder Snow Miser thinks it’s ok to snow/sleet/drop the temperature(at least in the Chicago area)  to the point where kids have to cover up their super duper super hero costumes with their basic boring winter coat if their parents let them go trick-or-treating in wintry weather to begin with. Retailers trying to urge the public to shop early and often for Christmas presents probably long dates the appearance of the Great Pumpkin in the “Peanuts” comic strip. [iii]     According to a Yahoo Finance article I just read it may be better to start your shopping early so you aren’t stressing and trying to beat the December Holiday crowds and stress when that Amazon ugly Christmas sweater for your BFF won’t arrive until St. Patrick’s day[iv]  and you got to go back to the overcrowded mall to find something else.  

Now, it may be one thing to start shopping for Christmas early.  Heck, if you want your house to be seen by the International Space Station it’s probably better to get started when the weather is warm in early October as opposed to right after Thanksgiving which, if you live in northern Illinois, could look a lot more like Christmas than Thanksgiving.    I know I could start to write my Christmas Cards to my far-flung friends and family as well and make sure they are ready to go out the two to three weeks before Christmas the post office recommends in order to get there by Christmas.   There are plenty of good reasons to start the Christmas holiday stuff early.

Yet, I’m observing a bit of a retail domino effect when it comes to how early one should be thinking of the next holiday.   So, starting in late September/early October the jingle bell decorations come out forcing Halloween stuff into the clearance corner.   This in turn means that if retailers want to get a jump start on the Halloween season, they are pushing that beginning to the start of August which of course is in the middle of the back-to-school season.   This in turn is now forcing retailers to start promoting the back-to-school season when the kids just got out/graduated in June & may still be celebrating summer with their friends & family.    This in turn then causes retailers to start promoting moms/dads/grads in late March/early April alongside the Easter Bunny.  Speaking of the Easter Bunny, I’m pretty sure sometime at the end of January I’ll hear the Cadbury Bunny’s cluck as I see Cadbury cream eggs and Peeps popping up on shelves alongside chocolate filled hearts and Valentine teddy bears that went on sale five days before Christmas.   ARGH!

It's no wonder Charlie Brown had to go see a psychiatrist to deal with his Christmas blues.   With Christmas being emphasized for over three months suddenly the holiday itself almost becomes anticlimactic.   The weird thing is this year I’m kinda feeling blasé /depressed about Halloween because of a similar retailer induced situation.  

Now, Halloween was never my favorite Holiday.   Christmas is but stating Christmas is your favorite holiday is like stating vanilla is your favorite flavor of ice cream. I scream, you scream we all pretty much will scream to be served vanilla ice cream that can become the basis of a sundae or ice cream bar or the base of some texture heavy flavor like chocolate chip cookie dough.   Still, I obviously loved dressing up and going trick or treating as a kid. I didn’t mind putting on a costume to consume wicked libations at a Halloween party as a younger adult or to try for a prize among my co-workers as a slightly more mature adult on October 31st when dress code policies were temporarily suspended.  I even volunteered to work in some haunted house fundraisers and I had a good time exploring other haunted houses with my friends.   Now that I am in my own space I can obviously put up some kitschy jack-o-lanterns to welcome the trick or treaters that probably won’t come to the door of my apartment.   Heck, I’ve managed to find at least 5 personally curated CD’s worth of Halloween themed music meaning if Linus wanted to listen to “Pumkin Carols” there are plenty of options.   The Freeform network only advertises “25 days of Christmas” TV content but has “31 days of Halloween” specials for the entire month of October.   So, you’d think I still should be hyped/hyped up on a dose of nostalgia alongside the sugar rush from eating an entire bag of mini chocolate bars for this holiday.    But this year.  I just can’t get myself hyped up for this particular holiday when it seems like retailers have been hyping the haunts way beyond when they should.  

I think there’s another reason why I may be depressed and lacking the Halloween spirit.  Part of me is still affected by a homily a priest friend of mine gave several years ago on the subject of Halloween and how no good Catholic should celebrate it.  After all Gregory Maguire/Steven Schwartz/Idina Menzel turned an evil green witch who wanted to kill a poor lost little farm girl from Kansas to get at her dead sister’s magic silver or ruby slippers depending upon which Wizard of Oz you prefer into one cool dudette.  Anne Rice/Stephenie Myers/Bram Stoker et al made being a bloodsucking never dead killer admirable.    More people on October 31st are more obsessed with Satan and his evil version of the resurrection of the dead aka zombie apocalypse than the actual resurrection of the dead brought about by Jesus Christ to those who passed on from this life believing in him AKA the main focus of Halloween-All Saints’ Day on November 1st. .    

Halloween in fact gets its name from the old English name for All Saints’ Day-All Hallows’ Day and hence the night before becoming known as All Hallows Eve which some drunk Irishman slurred together while lamenting the loss of Sahmain[v] as a major Celtic holiday.  I know one Catholic web entry I read recommended using Halloween as an opportunity to evangelize[vi] which I would do if I can find a way to get over my discomfort of approaching total strangers to ask “Did you know Jesus saved you from the fires of hell and you can go to heaven thanks to him?” and them viewing me to be as big of a freak as Frankenstein’s monster.

I think there’s another reason why I may be a little depressed this Halloween.  The phrase memento mori[vii]  has gone from being something cutesy Disney puts on the front of their Haunted Mansion ride to something a person my age begins to inevitably confront on a more frequent basis.   I’m sure most of us probably envisioned Mathew Perry portraying Chandler Bing in some “Friends” reunion special walking one of the babies Chandler and Monica adopted down the aisle in the distant future but now he’s gone.   I just found out one of the nicest and kindest boss I have ever worked for (think Mr. Fezziwig from “A Christmas Carol”) just passed away.   Five years ago I saw my father’s name written in this large scroll of the dead my church puts on display to commemorate the faithfully departed on All Saints Day/All Souls Day from the previous year.    Death and destruction is becoming the norm as wars take lives in Israel/Gaza, Ukraine, Africa, drug warlords in Mexico fighting among themselves along with street gang-bangers in Chicago.   Even the tranquil and supposedly peaceful state of Maine just suffered the loss of 18 lives to a nutcase gunman and I’m sick of these nutcase gunmen becoming so frequent kids have to do mass shooter drills the way I had to do tornado drills.   We’re just coming out of a global pandemic where over 1 million people in the US and nearly 7 people globally died of Covid 19[viii] some of which could have been prevented if some people weren’t clinging to their beliefs that Bill Gates wanted to insert a microchip to track people with every Covid vaccination.   And I know there is part of me that is responsible for this as well as deaths that may be related to global warming related disasters. 

And I’m not sure if I want to face that ultimate King of Kings descending onto the pumpkin patchwork of my life as I wonder if I will be with the saints that go marching in or the demons that descend into Hell.     And ironically, I’m hoping the King of Kings comes into the sincerity of my heart and causes it to rise above and be the one to give instead of get as I try harder to not be a great pumpkin-head this Halloween knowing my life on this earth is finite but my eternity will be forever.   

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