I'm sorry, but I just can't get into it. I admit it to you now in our secret space: I hate Halloween. Not for others, mind you. Just for me. It brings back years of feelings of inadequacy; I could never come up with a decent costume, and while I had friends whose mothers were hand making their lovely frog costume, with fins and sequins and felt and chicken wire, my mom was rushing home from work to dig through her closet in the desperate hope of finding something that we could cobble together a costume with. Or we were to late to get our costumes from People's drug store, so there I was wearing a Wonder Woman suit with a Super Man mask. Or she was late home from work to take us tricker treating so we missed the crowds of kids on the street.
Not that it's entirely my mother's fault. Ok, maybe this is. Mostly. She has many many fine qualities and I love her dearly. She is one of the nicest people you will ever ever meet. And she throws a great party. But Halloween (like braiding hair) was not one of her fortes.
So there. Now you know. I'm going to throw on a little outrageous makeup and go over to a friend's house and drink champagne. Because really, isn't that how you should mark all holidays?
Wednesday, October 31
:: Halloween Scrooge
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3 comments:
I hate Halloween, too! So glad to know I'm not alone. I actually have a horrible and traumatizing Halloween story that partly explains my grown-up dislike of it, but as I was just sitting here musing on the subject, I remembered that I also got my period for the first time during Halloween, and I'm pretty sure that just adds to the general sense of dislike I have for it in some subconscious way. I also hate the trend of Halloween as an excuse to dress like a slut, as if all rules of decency do not apply.
Luckily, I have somehow managed to avoid most traces of Halloween this year. I realized today I haven't even had any candy corn this year, which is the one part of Halloween I actually like. Here's to November 1st, Zippy!
Wow. What a tease. You need to tell me what the horrible experience was - inquiring minds want to know.
I suspect I'll still be saying "inquiring minds want to know" long after the National Inquirer is shut down and forgotten. Those ads haven't been on the teevee since the eighties.
And Zippy - the grass is always greener. My mother refused to buy the prepackaged costumes, preferring (despite working two jobs) to come up with her own designs. I was a squaw, a witch, the bride of frankenstein, a mouse (wearing a flimsy cardboard box decorated as a piece of cheese) and other stuff I can't remember. An angel maybe. And what I wanted was to just have a normal costume, from out of the package, like other kids. I always felt "judged" (I guess I mean self-conscious) with the homemade costume; I wanted the anonymity of the store-bought.
But on top of the all the fuss over costumes, when push came to shove each year it was too cold to go out without a winter coat. That pretty much negated the impact of the costume.
I thought Halloween was going to be (ahem) hellish for me, what with the dog going nuts every time she hears anyone outside. But she was actually pretty good (relatively speaking). This year there were plenty of kids on the block, but only one group rang my bell. I think there is some new kind of etiquette where you don't ring/knock on doors if the "porch" light isn't on, because my lightbulb blew out forever ago and I haven't replaced it. Either its new etiquette or some kind of candy-collection efficiency strategy.
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