In Santa Monica's wealthy neighborhoods, Halloween decorations outnumber Christmas ones. The speaker sees Halloween as a harmless secular spoof but worries it overshadows Christmas, which he views as culturally elevating and foundational to American life.
There are areas of my city like Santa Monica, California, a rather wealthy place and very liberal place, even left-wing. And there, I believe it is fair to say, there are more Halloween decorations than Christmas decorations. I don't care about Halloween. I do care, however, that more attention is paid to it than to Christmas. In many American homes, Halloween is sort of a spoof. It's a spoof on death, for example, 'cause a lot of hanging skeletons and so on. In and of itself, it's harmless, trick-or-treat tradition. It has none of the elevating aspect that Christmas does. That bothers me. It bothers me that there are whole neighborhoods where you can't see one home with Christmas lights. We're missing something, and a lot of secular people don't realize this. They don't appreciate the role that this holiday has played in the substance of American life.
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