The Legend of Hallowmas

Originally written 11/28/7

Years for now, nay, generations from now, when Hallowmas is an accepted and recognized holiday, history will demand a clear accounting of just where Hallowmas came from. So, for the sake of history, here is the Legend of Hallowmas.

First a little background. Tara loves freaking Xmas. I love freaking Halloween. She can deal with Halloween. I fucking hate Xmas. With the red hot passion of a thousand suns. You can see where there will be friction. To her credit, she has warmed up to Halloween, while my stance on hating Xmas has not changed. Around the house, Halloween was my day. It was all up to me to put up the decorations and take them down. It would seem as soon as I was taking down the Halloween graveyard, that it was being replaced by a winter freaking wonderland. The change was just too sudden for me. I always tried to persuade her to not go too overboard. Soon enough, I had to throw out a lifesaver to reel her in. Garland. Santas everywhere. Reindeers. Elves. Lights. That spray snow stuff on the window. It was like being trapped in a snowglobe with a demented Mrs. Clause.

Come the winter of 2004. We just got Bauer in September, he was barely 5 months old at this time. Tara’s all going on about getting a tree. Finally, I had some logic this year. I said no, because I was afraid he would see a tree inside, then go pee and shit on it (at least that’s who I would blame it on). I was afraid he would get to some of the ornaments, or knock the tree over. I calmly explained to her all this sound reasoning for not getting a tree.

So she’s putting up the tree. I’m not helping, because it’s not my “holiday”. I’m there to watch and criticize 2 things I am very good at. Tara called my sister Kathy over to help. Kathy brings over her kid Michael. Me and Mike just criticize everything they do. The wrong side of the tree is facing out. The lights don’t look good. It smells like dead bird. I look outside our big picture window. And there it was. We had a pumpkin out there since Halloween. It was still in good shape. So we said we’d take the pumpkin, decorate it, and it would be better than their measly little tree. It was game on.

We brought the pumpkin in and got to work. The first thing we realized it that it is far easier to decorate a tree than it is a pumpkin. We try tacking a strand of lights to the pumpkin, but they won’t hold the lights in. Duct tape! We duct taped the lights to the pumpkin, then used the tacks on the duct tape to secure it. This was a slow and timely process that ultimately ended up with more tacks in the damn thing than lights. Next was the garland. More tacks and duct tape.

We’d steal the leftover ornaments and hang them on the pumpkin. Soon enough, the first Hallowmas Pumpkin was born. Immensely proud of our achievement, we placed in the front window. If you walked by our house, you could only see a little of the tree in the corner. But right smack dab in the middle was a garish glowing pumpkin. It truly was beautiful.

Some girls who were Tara’s students just happened to be walking down the street. They asked what the deal was with the pumpkin, and I told them it was Hallowmas. A few weeks later in class, the girls gave Tara a Happy Hallowmas card. It dawned on me that I was on to something. Clearly, there was a need for Hallowmas.

Sure, Hallowmas was born out of my love of Halloween and hatred of Xmas. It was a cheap way to be lazy and keep up all of my Halloween decorations as late as possible. What better way than to declare it a ‘season’ as opposed to just one actual holiday? That way, I could keep stuff up from Halloween to Freaking past New Year’s. It was a bridge from Halloween to Xmas. The next year, it was a tradition to have the girls do the tree and the boys do the pumpkin. I think it was right around this time that I wrote about it in the Missile. Who hates fucking Xmas season more than retail workers?

There were many benefits to Hallowmas I explained. First of all, I invented it, so it must be good. And there should be a way to generate some money from the deal as well. Secondly, since it was so new, no one could feel excluded. No, Hallowmas does not discriminate. It doesn’t matter what your gender is, what your race is, what your religion is, how old you are, whatever. Even though I hate fucking Xmas, it does peeve me off to see people being so goddamn PC and call it the holidays. I don’t buy the argument that since “Christ” is in the title, some people should feel like they are being excluded, or some imaginary civil rights are being violated by the clerk at Pepperidge Farms. Here’s the deal; the origin of Christmas has been so diluted, that it doesn’t even matter anymore. No one cares that it is about the birth of some undocumented being. Just look at crosses these days. They don’t even have the connotations they had 2000 years ago. So don’t get so fucking uptight. If I’m in a store, and the clerk wishes me a Happy Hanukah, I say thanks, and move on. My panties aren’t all in a bunch since I am not Jewish. I’m not bitching out the manager. Someone just wished me to have a happy day, that’s it. Fucking deal with it.

And while I’m off on a tangent, did you hear the story about malls who forbid their Santas from saying “Ho ho ho” because it might be offensive to women? Seriously. You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me here, right? What’s next, we can’t call it the ‘Ho’lidays? We can’t wish to have a White Xmas, or shop on Black Friday? That’s one thing about Hallowmas, we can still be unPC. You can walk into the party and say “ho ho ho” all you fucking want. Even if it is full of 5 dollars ho’s. Dressed in Xmas lingerie….with..fishnets on…..and stilettos…..


So we did the Hallowmas pumpkin again a second year. Again, I wrote about it at length in the Missile and webpage. Another benefit is that the Hween stuff is all dirt cheap after Hween, so it’s easy to get stuff for a party.

We come to year three. Tara had arranged for her soccer team to go pumpkin picking on a Sunday. A bunch of us meet, and I tell them it’s my goal to get the biggest pumpkin I can find to make it the Hallowmas pumpkin. “What is Hallowmas?” they all ask. Here’s a new crowd to tell of my holiday. They seem to dig it, or at least humor me, which most of them know how to do now. So I find this big ass pumpkin. I mean seriously large. It was so big, even the people who worked there seemed shocked to have one this big. I bought a bunch of pumpkins for Hallowmas that year. Tara said she would carve a Santa in one, and I could decorate the other one. Recall is a bit foggy, but if I recall correctly, our friend April already had a ahem holiday party planned, when someone asked if we could make it a Hallowmas party. So let me get this straight. It’s my holiday, and we can throw the party at somebody else’s house? O, it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Except now people expected a Hallowmas party. The usual mash-up of Hween & Xmas wouldn’t cut it now. It was almost like there had to be some sort of backstory to the day. I got right to work. I found a place that did custom Santa hats. (you can read more about that in the party wrap up post). We took over the pumpkins, and decked out the mummy in Xmas lights and put him outside.

Now it was a challenge to try to put something together. I actually did some research, and discovered that there really used to be a Hallowmas. It was celebrated on November 1st-AKA All Saints Day. It was a feast in honor of all saints. So it was cool to find there was some precedent to it. But it did bum me out to think that someone thought of this before lil’ ol’ me. It’s still my fucking holiday though, and I’ll git to that later on.

Next up was to create some sort of imagery or background for Hallowmas. Xmas was for families to gather around the fire. So Hallowmas was for friends to gather around the beer pong table. Instead of roasting chestnuts on an open fire, at Hallowmas, it was getting roasted, numbnuts, around an open container. Instead of watching Peanuts, you were instructed to watch Xmas Story, the Silent Night, Deadly Night series, Xmas Vacation, and Night of the Living Dead.

Everyone seemed to have a good time. John even brewed a special beer called Hallowmas Ale just for the event. I am sure it was called Thanksgiving Ale the month before, and I think he changed the name to Bad Ass Ale the next month, but just to have Hallowmas Ale for one night was pretty sweet.

I even managed to get some Hween stuff on the tree. Two years ago, our topper was a skull. Last year it was a Grinch head. She gets her tree, I get my Hween decorations. Really, it bonds us.

And that brings us to year 4. Before I put away all my Hween props, I was sure to hold out some stuff for the party. We wised up, and bought plastic pumpkins this year for the HallowPumpkins. I have properly spelled Hallowmas hats this year. I am excited that we’re doing this again. Hallowmas season is all about getting together with your friends to have a good time. And since it is a season, you can choose when and where to celebrate; hell you can even do it twice.

This year, I even have a bigger audience to spread the idea to. I am regularly getting hits well into the hundreds per week on MySpace. I have readers in Florida, PA, NY, Chicago and West Virginia. And I will re-edit this post to put on the writer’s site I joined to hit a totally new audience. Yes, this could be the year we turn the corner. Go throw a Hallowmas party this year. Get red, green, orange and black Solo cups for HallowPong. Break out a few Hween decorations, slap some Xmas stuff on them, go get some brews and booze, invite friends and just have a good ol’ time. Just make sure everyone gets home safe, or at least passes out inside.

Lastly, I would like to state that Hallowmas is my holiday, my idea. Sure, in the past there was a “Hallowmas” celebrated, but there are huge differences between Hallowmas 2007 and Hallowmas 4 AD. Those pesky Christians just don’t know how to rock it like we do. They are 2 diverse events. And the final proof is that if they did a good job, we would have been celebrating Hallowmas all along. But, no, someone dropped the ball, and it disappeared. It laid dormant for 2000 years, so they lose any and all rights to it. Suck it, church.

I’ve also had some people tell me this sounds like festivus from some show called Seinfeld? For the record, I need to state that I’ve maybe watched 4 episodes, and none of them were about festivus. I don’t think the show is funny, and am unaware of the details of their festivus. I’m not even going to waste my time by researching it, either. I am sure it doesn’t have beer pong or drinking to the Grinch as tenants. I am sure mine is cooler. Besides, Seinfeld has enough goddamn money. He can sue me if he wants, but I will warn him that my wife is coming out with a healthy kid’s cookbook, so watch out Jerry. Of course, Seinfeld is more than welcome to partake in any Hallowmas activities. Just don’t expect my crowd to be doing any silly festivus shit.

So there it is. Unlike the first Thanksgiving which was largely undocumented, we have very clear records of the beginning of Hallowmas. I fully expect Hallmark to come crawling to my door, asking permission to make Hallowmas cards. Target and Walmart will send sleazy lawyers to try to buy the idea from me so they can bastardize it. I promise I won’t let that happen. John can market his official Hallowmas Ale, but only if the picture on the label is of him with the Viking Hat on from last year’s party. I will trademark the name so I can put out Santa hats, and t-shirts, and glasses. Urban Outfitters will be all over me. I’ll sit back like the fat cats that invented ‘secretary’s day’ or ‘Arbor day’.

During this busy Hallowmas season, please be sure to get together with a bunch of your friends to celebrate. For one day, Xmas doesn’t even exist. For one day, it’s still Halloween. For just a few hours, life is nothing more than what is happening at the house you celebrate Hallowmas.

And would it kill ya to send me a few gifts as a sign of thanks?