I might be just a little late to the “Summerween” party and honestly, I don’t feel bad about it.
I mean, I wasn’t even fully aware of the entire concept until last week for crying out loud!
That may be mostly due to the fact that I’m not overly concerned with the latest trends and partly to blame on my desire to avoid as much of summer as possible!
As I’ve mentioned in columns before,
Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday and honestly more of a personality trait at this point in my life.
But, I’ve only ever wanted to extend the creeptastic holiday into the winter months and could kind of get away with it thanks to 1993’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas” making itself a pop culture powerhouse.
Never once did I think mashing jack-o-lanterns and skulls with
beach towels and watermelons would make for some of the most random décor and surge in horror/thriller movies as of late.
Even when my sister was visiting, we spent some time scrolling through our usual online Halloween retailer haunts – Target, Michaels, At Home, and Homegoods.
Color me surprised at how much stuff there is out there already in preparation for the October event and it’s sunburnt stepchild – Summerween!
I have to admit that there were only a handful of the neon saturated items that caught my interest with that little exploration.
If anything, it left me wondering more about Summerween and its origins.
Regardless of what time of year it is, I’ve got a penchant for researching things that pique my interest and spent a few minutes tracking down more information about Summerween itself.
Apparently, “Summerween” comes from the Disney Channel’s “Gravity Falls” season 1, episode 12 of the same name where Halloween takes place in the summer and features carved melons instead of jack-o’-lanterns and trick-or-treating.
Seeing as I’ve never watched that show, it was sort of mind boggling to see that that episode came out in 2012 and I had only heard of Summerween in other vague references since!
During my search, I found traces of the rising trend growing right along for a few years on social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
I’m assuming that I just don’t’ follow all the right people because it’s still such a new concept to me!
I remember that last year, there was a surge in strange Halloween merchandise hitting the stores weeks ahead of October, but I didn’t really put two and two together until it blew up this year.
Now I’m browsing websites while trying to decide just how far I want to get behind the concept.
I just don’t see a point in investing in Summerween stuff unless it’s something that I absolutely can’t live without and can keep it up until Christmas rolls around.
Plus, depending on the décor I find, I might not even be able to put it up at the house because mom is definitely not a fan of the pseudo-holiday.
Maybe I can sway her with something we’ll both agree on?
Regardless of all of that, I am still undecided if Summerween should count as an official holiday yet.
But, I do know that if it does become more common then there are more chances for me to get better merchandise as it grows in popularity!
