I hate Halloween. There, I said it. I’m finally sharing my unpopular opinion about what I think is the worst holiday ever. Besides the whole asinine practice of telling our kids it’s okay to go up to a stranger’s home and ask for candy, Halloween is wasteful, chaotic, and just plain annoying.
The fond memories I have about Halloween from when I was a child involve making costumes with my family, spending time with friends, and trading candy after trick or treating. Even as a kid I didn’t love the trick-or-treating part. It always struck me as strange that the whole practice was okay one day and dangerous the next. Heck, back in my day our parents didn’t even come out with us. They hung back at the house drinking wine while we sprinted door to door begging for those tiny colorfully wrapped packages of pure sugar. And now that I have kids, things haven’t changed too much besides the fact that it actually is too dangerous to let them go on their own so we lucky parents have to go with them.
Why is this all a thing? I hate Halloween.
- I hate that one year I spent way too much time making a family-themed costume that got worn once at an event the week prior to Halloween, only to be ditched for something else from the dress-up bin on Halloween night. I hate that now I no longer want to put in the effort to make nice costumes and then on Halloween night I feel guilty and inadequate that my kids are dressed in half-assed attempts at a costume.
- I hate that my kids don’t want to wear coats over their costumes but we live in Vermont so they freeze their fingers off because they’re actually really proud of said half-assed costume.
- I hate that we try to trick or treat with a large group of friends and one of my kids gets sad when we split up, but she also can’t keep up because she’s too freaking cold and overstimulated to think straight, while the other kid is skipping past the crowd far ahead into the dark of night.
- I hate that bedtime is way later than necessary and that my kids are so tired the next day that I (and all you poor educators out there) get to deal with the aftermath of the mayhem from the night before, which includes serious mood swings (from everyone), cravings, and crashes. And the dysregulation lasts for days!
- Lastly, I hate that we now have two giant bags of candy in our house that need to be stored out of reach and rationed for fear the children will turn feral if they are given complete control of their booty.
My kids are only four and six, so I know I have years of this ridiculous tradition ahead of me. I’ve already asked my family if we can just opt out and create our own new way to celebrate the day (a day that, by the way, I don’t think many people even know what we’re celebrating. If you look up Sahmain, you’ll see we are supposed to be warding off ghosts, not dressing like them.)
Anyway, my family didn’t go for that, so I guess I will have to change my attitude. I still hate Halloween but at least I have 364 more days to work on it.
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