‘TIS THE SEASON. ANY DAY NOW.

By MICHAEL PERKINS

MANY YEARS BEFORE I MYSELF MOVED TO CALIFORNIA, I heard reference to “soft seasons”, or a condition in which the four major quadrants of the natural calendar kind of mushed into one another like melted crayons. Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter no longer were distinguished by a hard, defined marker, as was the case in my native Ohio. I’d ask a CA native if they had winter, for example, and he’s reply, “we sorta have winter.” As I write this, I’m heading, for the first time in five years, back to New York City, where they definitely have fall and then definitely have winter. So seasons are where you find them, giving some of us a strange neutral-gear sensation that is now replicated in how we celebrate holidays. From now (today is October 7) to New Years’ Day, we are sorta in a holiday season, with a much blurrier distinction between the major celebrations than ever before. Happymerry Hallogivingmas, everyone!

Go into any store at this time of year and you will see holidays that used to have their own distinct lane suffering a dizzying case of merging traffic. In the case of this image, the spooky costumes of October are already being shoved out the door ahead of the Yuletide onslaught, something that old buzzards like me love to include on our “It Ain’t How It Used To Be” playlist. Having taken this picture, however, I am already puzzling as to why I did. Is this commentary? Humor? Protest? Is this even a good photograph, or is what’s seen here already so commonplace as to be banal? Do we need one more ticked-off geezer saying everything’s too commercial?

I mean, we all know why this happens. Retail needs more and more time to “make” its fiscal year, and the fourth quarter is the field on which that battle happens. Spending forecasts for the last three months of the year are nervously trotted out well before Labor Day, forcing retailers to stock as much as they can cram onto the sales floor, as early as they can. And now that I read back this paragraph, I have the answer to my earlier question as to whether this picture even needs to exist, or serves any purpose. Of course, I ask the same question about every picture I make. It’s just that I’m usually happier with the answer. Hand me the chocolate-covered turkey gingerbread, willya?