Is it pumpkin season yet?

Over the past few weeks, my girlfriends and I have gotten into our yearly debate: when is too early for Pumpkin Spice? Yes, I know, first-world girl problems. Regardless, this debate is important to me. I am firmly of the mindset that Pumpkin Spice season should align with the Fall, allowing the summer flavors their time at least through the end of August. Several of my girlfriends disagree, asserting no harm in adding pumpkin spice creamer to their morning coffee as soon as said creamer hits the grocery shelves…sometime in the beginning of August (while it is still strawberry lemonade season, I might add). 
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Although entirely playful, this debate does have some deeper connotations, as most do. I don’t really care when people start obsessing over the Fall flavors. In all honesty, they are my favorite, and I am absolutely guilty of drinking a pumpkin beer “off-season.” However, there is something to be said for honoring and dwelling deeply in each season. Often life can take on a rote habitualness that lulls us into complacency, each day blending into the next with little hope of change or excitement. It is precisely the change of season that naturally jolts us out of this state of melancholy. It is the anticipation of an upcoming change that deepens our appreciation for the current season and provides us something to look forward to when it ends. If Pumpkin spice was available all year round, it would lose its hype very quickly, and Starbucks’ Autumn sales would plummet. 

King Solomon, in his contemplative poem in the Old Testament, asserts “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…[God] has made everything suitable for its time” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 11a). There is a wisdom in honoring the passage of time and marking it in seasons. It encourages us to be in the moment and have gratitude for that which will not be forever. Interestingly, psychological research often supports claims made by the Wisdom teachings of our ancient Scripture, and this little Wisdom nugget about seasons is no exception. 

Yale’s wildly popular course, Science of Wellbeing, taught by Dr. Laurie Santos, cites research supporting the claim that “savoring” an experience—a moment, a day, a season—contributes to our happiness. This savoring, defined as the act of mindfully enjoying an experience, allows us to live into and embrace the season or appointed time of whatever it is we are going through. Interestingly it may apply, as Solomon discusses, to subjectively “positive” and “negative” experiences: “a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:4). By allowing ourselves to indwell deeply into these appointed times, we allow ourselves to truly feel the breadth of the human experience. 

Dr. Santos also discusses the importance of gratitude in cultivating joy. Backed up by Brené Brown’s research, which reports a strong correlation between gratitude and joy, she theorizes that the act of intentional gratitude contributes to our sense of joy and wellbeing. Being grateful for a season and savoring all it has to offer instead of looking forward to the next season, is key to finding joy in the present moment. 

So if you’re not ready for summer to end yet, you have until the Autumnal equinox on September 22 to enjoy the pool with a margarita in hand. If you’re anxious to start your savoring of Fall, September 1 is the beginning of the meteorological Fall, and Labor Day, fashion’s official switch from summer whites to Fall rusts, is right after. Whatever you’re sipping on this weekend, a Summer Shandy or a Pumpkin Ale, savor it this season. You have my permission to let anyone know who asks that you’re just following the Bible’s teachings with your beverage of choice.