The Season for Ignoring the Season

I went to Starbucks the other day and found myself looking at Fall leaves and an advertisement for the comforts of a pumpkin Latte.

My first thought was, 'Did we even have summer?' It's been cool and wet for most of the summer months in Oregon, and this ad was like a billboard on the highway of life saying you missed the exit -- summer is over, so shut up and drink your pumpkin latte, we're not turning around.

Only now that summer has showed up like a late dinner guest… well it's just getting awkward.

In one sense, if you're going to do any kind of Fall marketing, you gotta get it out while the rivers are still low, the sun sets late, and the air conditioners are still humming. Because if you don't, Halloween and Christmas will kill your Fall marketing.

I love the Fall months. I like the chill in the air, but not the uncomfortable cold of winter. As a bit of a foodie, the Fall harvest is where it's all at. The mushrooms come out, the squashes are fresh from the fields and the weather is cool enough to keep the oven on all day roasting meats or simmering soup throughout the afternoon.

But autumn gets overwhelmed by Halloween and then {BAM} it's all about Christmas with just one little poke above the store-wide sales and jingly Christmas carols to roast a turkey, then we're out the day after Thanksgiving shopping like there's no tomorrow.

Only there is tomorrow. Another sale, another Christmas jingle selling energy wrist bracelets, Snuggies and auto insurance.

So we get a couple weeks in September that almost feel like Fall and aren't cluttered with ghosts and cardboard cutouts of witches. The only spider webs are real, and they aren't the nasty cobwebs that come out of a can, but something more evocative of EB White's literary arachnid.

I try to ignore the marketing that ignores the real season, but I live in the real world, with all it's assumptions of 'It's September, so it must be time for Pumpkin Lattes.'

Sheep ranching is looking better all the time… Or something up in the hills where I can watch the seasons change with the trees and sky rather than the advertisements on my coffee cup.