Halloween in New Hampshire seems to have two strikes against it these days. One is, of course, the weather, which is apparently intended to freeze us all into oblivion like Arnold Schwarzenegger in that really bad Batman movie. The other is the nicknames about said weather: Last year it was “Snowtober,” this year it’s “Frankenstorm.” Next year it’ll be something like “The Headless Weather System Bringing Chilly Nighttime Lows, Patchy Overnight Fog in Low-Lying Areas, and Wintry Mix. . . of Sleepy Hollow.”
Meteorologists can’t yet explain why Mother Nature has turned against trick or treaters – if it’s because of my “Ben Affleck in Gigli” costume from two years ago, I apologize – but we do need to do something about it, and I think I have the answer: Let’s move Halloween out of late October. Pushing it later into the year won’t work; it’d just get colder, of course, and besides, there’s already a slew of big holidays then (Christmas, Hanukkah, Thanksgiving, golfer Lee Trevino’s birthday). No, we’ll need to move Halloween a little earlier – so I propose we move it earlier in the month, to the second Monday in October.
Now I know what you’re saying. “Dude, Barry, that’s already Columbus Day! And it’s Canadian Thanksgiving!” And to that I say, “Why are you calling me Barry?” And also, if it’s already two holidays, what’s the harm in tacking one more on?
By merging the three into Hallo-Colum-nadian Thanksgiving-bus-ween Day, we not only deal with the weather issue, we put trick or treating on a day when we know almost everyone will actually be home, thus cutting down on the number of home egging incidents, though anyone dressed as King Ferdinand or Queen Isabella will probably have to deal with a lot of extra requests for ocean-worthy ships that day.
And we’ll automatically have all sorts of great new costume ideas. Let’s face it, people love dressing up as notable Canadians. Take Jimmy Fallon, for example: He spends so much time dressed as “the pride of Winnipeg” Neil Young, that when Neil released his memoir, Waging Heavy Peace, Fallon sued him for identity theft – and won!
There’s a woman in my neighborhood who’s already a dead ringer for Celine Dion (to be honest, I’m pretty sure she is Celine Dion. And yes, her heart appears to be going on.) And what about all the hipsters who read poems in the style of William Shatner?
And this new cross-border double holiday will be as lucrative as it is fun. Canadian industry will have a huge new market for all those Margaret Atwood and Brian Adams costumes, and you have to think those profits will fuel more than a few shopping trips back into the States. Undoubtedly some of the money will go to rebuilding the Toronto Blue Jays, which would hurt the Red Sox, but let’s be honest, that’s sort of a given right now anyway.
There’s only one thing I ask of Canada in return for all this love and treasure: I need to borrow the band Rush for about a week. I’m making a movie about radioactive chickadees that travel back in time to Elizabethan England. I’d like Rush to write the soundtrack – and Geddy Lee could voice the chickadees’ leader.
Heck, he can wear a Geddy Lee costume while he records the lines!
