What is Spooky Season?
If you spend any time on social media looking for Halloween ideas, you've likely heard the phrase spooky season. But what does it mean?
A few years ago, a reporter from Slate.com asked me that question. I shared, and it culminated in this opinion piece where she argued that spooky season is a silly moniker for a holiday that already has a clear name—Halloween.
Fair.
But I, respectfully, beg to differ.
Spooky season is something more.
As someone who loves Halloween enough to create a blog about it, write magazines about it, send a weekly newsletter about it, and exist on social media all year sharing content about it, I think I'm well-qualified to tell you what spooky season is—and isn't.
Just picture me as your spooky Linus, telling the story of Christmas:
Lights, please! (And hold your comments about the irony of a Christmas-related gif until the end. Thank you.)
But first, let's discuss the holiday season
I'll start here because it seems the easiest comparison for me to make: we call the time between Thanksgiving and Dec. 25 the "holiday season".
But Christmas is a single day.
Why a season for a single day?
Well...I would argue it's because during the time leading up to Dec. 25, there are SO many other activities to enjoy, like:
Shopping for gifts
Decorating homes
Visiting Christmas tree farms to select a tree
Sending holiday cards to friends and family
Attending holiday parties (For work! For school! For family! For friends! For whatever!)
Watching TV specials
Watching holiday movies
Baking holiday cookies
Going to in-person tree-lighting ceremonies
You can't fit that all into one day, hence the season.
Now, let's be honest: the holiday season is a social construct. It only exists because we, as a society, say or believe it does. (And, okay, maybe through a little marketing magic too.)
But does that make it any less enjoyable? Does it mean that time spent with your family or friends isn't as valuable?
Absolutely not.
What is spooky season?
Here's the reality that Christmas lovers hate to admit: the winter holidays don't resonate with everyone.
And that's okay! That's part of what makes the world interesting.
There are those of us that would prefer to celebrate Halloween over any other holiday during the year. It's our place where we feel at home. We love the glow of a jack-o-lantern, the screams from a haunted house, the chill of the autumn night air.
And trying to enjoy all those things in a single day just isn't feasible either.
Halloween has become a season as well, blurring the lines between outright Halloween activities and traditional fall activities. It's a season less tied to religious holidays or family traditions and more focused on genuine fun, silliness, and enjoyment of life.
In the fall, you might be enjoying things like:
Hunting for the first pumpkins of the season
Visiting a Spirit Halloween store
Checking out a haunted house
Working on Halloween costumes
Getting lost at the local corn maze/pumpkin patch
Going on a drive to take in the fall color
Hosting a bonfire on the first cool night of autumn
Carving pumpkins
Watching horror movies
Baking Halloween or pumpkin treats
You get the idea. There are a LOT of activities that make up the time leading up to October 31st.
And THAT, my friends, is spooky season: a time of year (we'll call it, definitively, September and October) when you enjoy all the things you love about fall, Halloween, etc.
Why do we need spooky season?
Aside from there being a lot to do, I have a few reasons for needing spooky season.
It gives us a universally recognized time frame to celebrate.
By definition, Halloween is a single day, but by giving it a season Halloween lovers are extending the timeframe in which they can enjoy their favorite holiday and its related activities. And by giving it a name, we are creating a new social construct and making it understood this idea isn't something just a handful of people enjoy. It's a group, a community, dare I even say...a movement?
It gives Halloween lovers a place to belong.
One thing I've noticed about Halloween lovers over my 8+ years of writing Spooky Little Halloween is most of us feel like the misfits, the outcasts, the weirdos of the world. Halloween has given us a place to belong. It's the one time of year when it's okay to be weird and different because...everything is weird and different during spooky season.If you felt that way, wouldn't you want to make that feeling last a little longer than a single day? There's a reason that quote about making everyday Halloween is so popular.
It brings people happiness.
Look, we've all just several years in a global pandemic. If we haven't learned by now that life is precious, and we should do the things that bring us joy...I guess we're not going to learn that lesson at all.But for me, seeking happiness whenever I can find it in my life is something I am now chasing regularly. If it makes you happy and it doesn't harm anyone else...why does it matter? Embrace it. Enjoy it. Celebrate it.
It gives credence to the magic inside your heart.
A love of Halloween is about way more than enjoying jack-o-lanterns or candy or scaring people. It's about that feeling inside that only happens during a certain time of year. You can chase it all the other months, but there is something special about September and October that makes it burn brighter. In December, you'd likely call it the holiday spirit. In October, we'll call it the Halloween spirit.Spooky season is a time to let that spirit shine bright, feel it fully, and revel in it. It's the indefinable thing that true lovers of the season feel in their hearts, the thing that can't be replicated at any other time of the year. It's magic.
And that, Charlie Brown, is what spooky season is all about.
You don't have to agree with me. At the end of the day, spooky season is a social construct just like the holiday season. It only exists because we say it does. And if you don't like it or enjoy it, there are PLENTY of other things in this world I'm sure you do enjoy that you can spend your time on.
But for me, that thing is Halloween.
And if it is for you too, Happy Spooky Season.
