<irit of the upcoming holiday, the end of this crazed month, and my recent inability to muster anything creative beyond the scope of classes that seem to be temporarily occupying my soul, I devote this week’s column to America’s beloved holiday, Halloween.
There are three types of people in the world: people who begin planning for Halloween as soon as the air starts to get dry, people who think they love Halloween because of the aforementioned group but secretly feel no sort of attachment to the holiday, and people who openly despise it, run around smashing pumpkins, and turn off all their lights because, God forbid, a trick-or-treater might just appear at their door.
As a kid, I was a proud member of the first group. My brother, cousin and I would all get dressed up, carve pumpkins and, as soon as it got dark, run bouncing off the streets from sugar highs that would increase exponentially as the night progressed, my parents desperately trying every trick in the book to calm us.
“Maddy! Slow down or we’ll take away your candy!”
Better eat it now then!
I used to choose my costume based on whoever I decided was worthy of sharing my precious night/(in reality) whoever would go along with my absurd ideas. I forced my little brother to be Toto to my Dorothy and Robin to my Batman; my cousin to be a princess to my witch; and my best friend, one half of a two-headed monster (yes, we actually walked arm-in-arm for three hours under an XXXL shirt from Target).
Trick-or-treating is a skill, and the most difficult part of it is that a trick-or-treater only gets one chance for improvement per year. After an exhilarating night out, my little crew and I would all congregate back at my house, where my parents would, defeated, give up trying to calm us down and simply sit exhausted watching as we compared candy.
“Woah! Petie got a whole Hershey’s bar! What house was that?” We would all take note, carefully strategizing for next year. I think the best part was, unlike birthdays and Christmases, Halloween lingers for a while along with the surplus of candy and the upcoming holiday season to look forward to.
But sadly, we’re not kids anymore, and we can never again look upon the holiday with such innocent fondness as before. Halloween has now changed forever, corrupted by girls who have turned Dorothy , princesses and ducks into clubbing outfits and boys who pathetically write “ghost” on their white t-shirts.
Until Halloween rejuvenates itself and we have our own kids to chase (perhaps by that time someone will have invented an effective way to keep track of our reckless progeny), we must wait it out in the awkward stage of knowing we are too old to get dressed up but too nostalgic to give it up altogether.