Once upon a time, the jack-o’-lantern was synonymous with Halloween. It was the perfect symbol. Inexpensive, traditional and organic, it required creativity. Illuminated from within, it was a thing of eerie beauty.The jack-o’-lantern is still with us, of course. It pops up on sidewalks, lawns and front porches at this time of year. But it has been supplanted, to a large degree, by all manner of hideous plastic crap. Crap that starts appearing in stores long, long, LONG before the holiday itself. The most horrific of these ersatz decorations are giant, inflatable . . . things that have cropped up in front yards in recent years.
These monstrosities, which can be six feet tall or more, feature the usual array of goblins and witches and ghosts and haunted houses, except that they are so large and garish that they practically scream tackiness. Some of them even create their own noise pollution, thanks to the constant operation of the blowers that keep them inflated.
Halloween should not be highbrow. It is Halloween, after all. But when the decorations become more ghoulish than the holiday itself, something is amiss.
