Hate is a very strong word – especially since it’s only one half of my bipolar feelings for Halloween. So to pre-empt any self righteous indignation on behalf of this annual dress up party, I’ll first state some of the things that I LOVE about Halloween.
I love candy. I love little boys and girls in pirate costumes. I love little boys and girls in princess costumes. [Okay – so the little boys dressed as princesses are just hypothetical since their fathers won’t allow it. But those that settle for being princesses in their hearts will eventually have their day in Key West.] I love chilly nights with glowing, grinning pumpkins. I love the sound of a neighborhood party and the sight of men unafraid to wear tights in public (even some of the aforementioned censorious fathers). I love the idea that for one night you can put on a costume and pretend to be someone else. Because don’t we all entertain the idea of being someone else every once in a while? Even just for a minute?
So with that out of the way… This Friday Confession is that I hate Halloween (at least 50% of the time). Why? Um – because it’s scary. I have mentioned previously that I do not enjoy horror movies. The Ring did not give me thrills and goosebumps. It made me want to throw my TV out the window screaming, “never, never, NEVER do that do me again! How am I supposed to sleep at night now that I’ve seen that?!” I’ll stick with Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin thank you very much.
But how can you avoid the truly scary stuff in these October weeks? I live in fear of channel surfing in the evening. You may be clicking through, looking for something entertaining – perhaps a Will & Grace rerun, or maybe one of those Danielle Steele movies on Lifetime – and out of nowhere you are confronted with Linda Blair screaming obscenities and spewing green slime. That is just not something I’d like to see. Especially as a surprise. I don’t particularly like nice surprises, let alone those of the demonic variety.
Another thing I don’t like about Halloween: the undead. The whole premise of this day is that the dead come back to visit, and my very least favorite droppers by are the ones that don’t know how to stay dead. At it’s very core, the idea of the dead coming back to life is decidedly NOT fun. Yet every year, people strap on their fake gore and find each others’ missing heads and terminal wounds delightfully amusing. Exactly when and how did the undead become festive?
But then there is this whole other world of candy corn and superhero costumes. It makes me feel so conflicted… Especially when I find myself talking to people who are entirely against Halloween. One coworker told me that her kids passed out candy, but did not dress up like their friends. The reason being that their grandmother felt very strongly about Halloween and called it the “devil’s day.” My response was that “it’s not if you go as a fairy princess.” But given my own aversions to Satan and the undead, I can see her point.
In the end – I do not ban Halloween, and OF COURSE I encourage my children to dress up and have fun. But there will always be that part of me that says, “wait – why are we doing this again?” No need to give me a history lesson – I know the background. But I kind of think that the Hallmark corporations of the world have made us forget about those very serious superstitions and instead, turned the day into a Disney themed party where both lovely and horrifying creatures coexist with only theoretical bloodshed. My own unreasonable fears and phobias will never allow me to fully buy in though; and I’ll be more likely to avoid the dark basement at night than to gleefully festoon my front lawn with fake corpses. I think I’ll just stay home and pass out candy to three year old ladybugs. And I’ll stick to Netflix movies until November first.
I’m totally with you on being a scaredy cat. I hate being scared. I hate horror movies. I hate ghouls and blood and guts and chain saws and the like. But… I love love love halloween. I think it’s just because I love pumpkins. And I love candy. And I love costumes. Even though, I’m on a diet and not eating candy, hate dressing up in costumes and hate trick or treaters. So… really, I have no good reason or explanation as to why I love Halloween so much … maybe just because it’s festive.
I love everything Halloween (except for the undead – if they came to life that would really suck). I love the candy, the costumes, the decorating, the scary movies.
Bubs hates Halloween. He has since he was a kid. He never ever gets dressed up for any costume parties. I’m betting there was a traumatic incident in his past that he’s not telling me about. Maybe he was forced to dress as a fairy princess or something.
I don’t like being scared either. And I’m trying to cut out the sugar in our life (as much as possible) so what kind of message am I sending to my kids when I only allow an occasional cookie but let them collect candy from the neighbors?
However, I love costumes! I once won a contest in a bar for dressing as my self. I was White Trailer Trash. LOL. And K and I dressed as a nun and priest for a party and then made out all night. Good times!
My hatred for Halloween stems from the fact that trick-or-treaters in my somewhat sketchy ‘hood are 40% adorable munchkins and 60% adult men who demand candy while not wearing costumes. And you really can’t say no to them. So we hide in the basement and watch movies.
I get you on the conflicting messages, too, tho. And I am a scary movie wimp forever. Why do that to myself.
And hey, THANK YOU for the Kirtsy refer, lady! You’re the rockinest.
I am easily terrified…and therefore, I’m also not a fan of that part of Halloween! But I do love me some candy corn.
I’m like your picture negative: I hate the plastic costumes and candy-greed of Halloween, but I can’t get enough of the being scared (and those Saw movies do not count).
I think Im more scared of my children on a sugar high. Now thats some scary stuff
I do like Halloween, it’s mainly the chocolate, I admit. But, I think we’ve already bonded over our hatred of all things horror, and movie previews this time of year are enough to put me off TV until TG specials start!
I like Halloween. The holiday I dislike is Thanksgiving. I don’t think most people actually give thanks on that day. Instead, it is just an excuse to eat excessively.
I’m not a huge fan either–I don’t like being scared–I do like dressing up the kids though
Jake’s costume this year is terrifying– a zombie doctor. He said, “Mom, I can’t believe you let me get this!” Fortunately, we will miss our little neighborhood party so he won’t terrify the little ones.
I’m right there with you regarding scary movies. They’ve been playing The Ring over and over again and it’s taken all my strength not to watch it. My husband wanted to watch it one night and I told him that he would have to do it in another room…I get SO scared!
I’m with you in that I hate all things scary! But I love halloween because it’s the one day of the year I get to dress up as a flapper in my fabulous all-fringe dress, gorgeous boa and tall feather headband. Love it.
Why do we still do it? Because it’s tradition!
Yeah, it’s a tradition, just like the Easter Bunny! Since we don’t really live in a “neighborhood” we’ve never had any kids come to our door. And that’s fine. Have a Happy, and not too scary, Halloween!
Great post! I detest anything horror too. I prefer to stay in a nice fallish pumpkin haze around halloween.
I’m not a fan either. I hadn’t really thought of the whole undead thing but, eeew!
It’s just waay to Hallmarked now for my taste. Sigh…
My problem with Halloween is that it’s the one day girls think it’s ok to dress up and make anything look like a…ahem…hooker.
I love scary, especially psychological scary stuff. I don’t believe in all the undead stuff so it doesn’t bother me to watch it. Plus, my mom watched it so I grew up on it…
Thanks for submitting your post again!
I have mixed feelings about Halloween too. Before I had kids, I didn’t celebrate it all. We lived in an apartment building in San Francisco, so I didn’t even buy candy. I just really don’t like dressing up. At all.
Now that I have kids… I adore dressing them up. They always pick great costumes and share their candy with me. And they don’t mind if I don’t dress up as long as I don’t steal any of their bubble gum. It’s a win-win.
I am not much on the fright factor either.
I don’t like the horror and scaredness of Halloween either. I like the cute costumes, and I try to remember that in actuality it is a Memorial Day, remembering those who have come before us. In Mexico it is Dia de los Muertos and they honor their ancestors.
My first time here. :) I have been conflicted about this holiday and what it stands for too. I don’t like horror flicks and didn’t enjoy changing the channel the other night to find myself looking Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street in the eye w/o warning. I AM FOREVER TRAUMATIZED BY THAT MOVIE from my youth. However, if you click on my post from Friday, you will see that I too have gone along with the cute little costumes and pray I can avoid the scary parts of Halloween with my daughter.
That post made me giggle :) The picture of little boys dressed as princesses (my son asked to be Belle this year) is too perfect. Ahhhh…
And yeah, I get some of the yuckiness of Halloween. And the overdoneness of Halloween. I know people who are celebrating it for over a week with various stuff they “have” to do. I’ll stick with just the one night, thanks! :)
You know, I don’t even miss Halloween like I expected to this year. So instead of hearing everyone back home talk about how wonderful it’s going to be this year, I’m loving the approach you’re taking more. Thank you for saying everything you have here.
Now that we’re in Germany, I’m celebrating the holiday a little differently. If you’re interested, I just wrote something about it, too.
I don’t watch scary movies any time of the year. If it weren’t for my kids, I’d probably turn all the lights out and stay in the back of the house with a flashlight reading a book. I’m kind of a scrooge, but I put on the happiest Halloween face I can and do all the expected stuff. My kids and husband get mad at me when I buy the cheap candy.
LOL Ah, we’re total opposites! The scarier the better for me! I watched Final Destination 3 right before going to Six Flags for the rollercoasters. If you’ve seen that movie, then you get why I should have been scared but it was such a thrill for me.
Visiting you via BPOTW. I wanted to tell you that I’m a big scaredy cat but, for some reason, if there’s a zombie movie on I have to watch it. Then I’ll have nightmares for days and wake up thinking there are zombies in the house. I don’t know why I inflict that insanity upon myself but the cries of “Brains! Brains!” get me every time.
You mentioned “The Ring” in your post. I did not watch one single horror movie when I was pregnant. I was ridiculously scared that it would sink into my child through osmosis or you can just call it paranoia. Same difference.
Anyway, we have the Blockbuster mail service and “The Ring” arrived one day. I sent it right back because I was about 6 months along and refused to watch it.
I told you I’m a big scaredy cat. I never claimed to be normal!
I’m with you– I hate scary movies like The Ring or The Grudge– but I hate slasher movies more and I never could make it through the Exorcist. YIKES! I do love good vampires and handsome wearwolves as long as they don’t do gruesome things.
I LOVE candy and I LOVE helping out at school with the little ones, the parties etc. I was never good at costumes for myself. I don’t know why. Just once I would love to be something really cool. Hmmm…something non-scary, not not stupid. BAHAHAHAHA
Stopping in from BPOTW:)
we’ve kept the scary part out of halloween for our kids. they don’t watch any scary stuff on tv and everything around the house is just fun stuff. i’m totally with you on the nonscary type of halloween
Oh kate! how funny. We try to focus on the fun, happy, load yourself up with sugar from strangers part of halloween!
I totally agree with you. I hate, hate, hate the scary stuff. Hate scary movies, hate scary/freaky costumes, hate the creepy people walking the street Halloween night getting their jollies off the trick or treaters, I could go on.
But I do love candy…and cake…
Blog line of the decade:
Okay – so the little boys dressed as princesses are just hypothetical since their fathers won’t allow it. But those that settle for being princesses in their hearts will eventually have their day in Key West.
You made my Monday!
Yeah, I’m with you. But I think we’ve established that already. :) I’m dreading the day my boys want to bring scary home on Halloween. Not.gonna.happen.
I’m with you on this. I like the cute little costumes, but I hate giving candy to the ones who are dressed so scary that they scare me and the kids!
(visiting from BPOTW)