Friday, October 22

In the time that I have lived in Finland the importance of Halloween has grown exponentially. Traditionally Finns take little notice of it and at the end of the twentieth century it had just begun sneaking into shops in the guise of special Halloween candies and shelves of pumpkins, some festooned with pre-made eyes and teeth

In recent years it has grown into a giant Festival of Consumption with shops filling up with cakes, candies, toys and witches costumes, all collected into seasonal sections where seasonal buying might happen.

Yesterday in Prisma we noticed something very odd. The halloween section hardly existed. In fact I had to look hard to see it. Inside the whole store seemed devoted to announcing the impending arrival of Christmas. The cosmetics and toy sections had expanded and both featured advent calendars to set next to the traditional confectionery ones.

I wonder if this relates to the pandemic in some way?

In the deli at Stockmann today I find a special Christmas box of Kelloggs Corn Flakes, adorned with an illustration by Norman Rockwell.

Wait till November at least, I want to shout. But I don’t.