Holiday Decorations I Can't Forget

This is a very special time of year for stores. Shoppers are greeted by plastic pumpkins and inflatable spiders; paper mache turkeys and pilgrim hats; and ersatz evergreens with red, white, or silvery foliage and pre-mounted lights.

Retailers hope that they can sell this year's Halloween stuff, to make room for the next two big holidays.

The Loonfoot Falls Valderrama's manager, is no exception. They've got some fine-looking masks that could be the Scream mask's insanely happy cousin, with a metallic red finish. Then there are the plastic pumpkin buckets: dozens of them.

Dina Nelson, of Dina's Diesel Diner, by the Interstate, got her holiday stock on the shelf: including a very retro-looking plaque with an eagle and a turkey in front of a stars-and-bars shield.

Deuce Hardware's replaced garden supplies with snow shovels, de-icer fluid, bird feeders, and Christmas lighting equipment: including an inflatable snow globe. Somehow, "inflatable" shows up a lot in descriptions of holiday paraphernalia.

Rasmussen's is trying to keep this season's Titanic Transmogrifiers on the shelves in its toy department. They don't evoke the same warm, fuzzy feelings as outsized wooden nutcrackers and Christmas elves: but they're selling like hotcakes.

The downtown Coalworth store's gift section had something that caught my eye: "Nightmare Before Christmas" figures. Now I can't seem to forget a pair of them, Jack and Sally. I'll admit that Jack, dressed in a Santa Claus suit, is colorful. But they're rigged with little cables so they can be hung on a Christmas tree.