October is such a great month! It’s the start of fall and cooler weather, plus my favorite holiday of all time, Halloween! But I’ve noticed something this year. Something is different. I don’t see much about Halloween around, and I don’t like it.

For instance, usually I get a couple of jammies and Halloween shirts for Baby Grrl to wear. I’ve found a couple of each, but the selection is very small, and it seems like the stores aren’t stocking back what has been sold. Target usually has a large selection of cool stuff, and while they have the largest I’ve seen in a department store, again their stock isn’t as large as usual. I’ve had to go to a “Halloween Superstore” to look for costumes for Baby Grrl. The one exception I’ve seen so far.

But it doesn’t even stop with products. Normally this time of year is great for people like me when it comes to horror movies and programming. AMC is known for it’s Monsterfest, showing great classics and modern favorites, but even that has changed. Instead of a month of great horror movies, it’s now down to just 8 days, with the name changed to Fearfest. Other movie channels also have toned down their selections, from showing movies just one night a week, to just the week leading up to Halloween.

I’ve noticed it other places, too. I don’t see advertisements for haunted houses yet. Where is the add for the Bricktown Haunted Warehouse? It starts this weekend, and has been a OKC Halloween staple for over 20 years. The Frontier City Halloween events start this weekend also.

My tinfoil-hat starts tingling when I try to figure out why. Is it the religious right who are trying to get Halloween out of the public eye? It’s long time been a target, what with the misinformation about devils, witches, and other “evil” myths. And many of them have influence in the most unlikely of places, it’s not much of a stretch for my overactive imagination to have them influence what items are placed in a store and what adds show… Ok best take off the tin-foil hat.

I’m just really disappointed, and hope this isn’t a trend. We love Halloween so much, we got married on that day. Seriously.