Hallo-weanie

Can we talk?

I know there will be groans all around from the young at heart, but I’ve got to be honest: I’m not a fan of Halloween.

People everywhere are looking forward to lots and lots of Halloween festivities. But me? I’m glad to have a wedding to go to that allows me the excuse, “Oh no, I wish I could come to your raging Halloween party, but I’ve got this wedding to go to… Shucks!” (and, obviously, I’m genuinely excited to see one of my best friends tie the knot with his lovely bride—it seems like just yesterday that he brought her to my house over Christmas break… but I digress).

Halloween’s just never been that big of a deal to me. As a child, we would dress up and trick-or-treat, but we lived just west of Po-Dunk and my main benefactors were my grandparents and my babysitter. And this usually resulted in a plastic pumpkin full of fruit and those undistinguishable orange and black candies.

I’ve never been allowed to watch scary movies, and for good reason—the one time I went rogue and watched ‘Are You Afraid of the Dark?’ I had nightmares for weeks. As a result, I still don’t subscribe to the horror genre.  I would rather polish the silver and scrub the baseboards than sit through a Paranormal Activity-like movie. I’ve never even seen Scream, and, among my generation, that’s unheard of. So, no Halloween movie marathons for me. This only further exasperates my distaste for Halloween as I am now forced to avoid ABC Family’s “13 Nights of Horror” or whatever. Look, “Hocus Pocus” scared me as a child and it scares me now. Disney or not.

Even the opportunity to dress up doesn’t thrill me. Frankly, I collapse under the pressure to come up with a clever costume. I’m not looking for an excuse to wear thigh-high stockings and bloomers, so that cuts out costume stores with ceiling-high stacks of custom costumes for the “modern woman”: slutty pirate, slutty witch, slutty cheerleader, slutty demon… let’s cut through all this red tape and just be slutty, huh? In my humble opinion, I’d rather be bundled up on a cold October night… but what do I know?

Don’t get me wrong—I love fall. I love pumpkins and mums, and nothing makes me smile like driving down a country road shrouded in trees of orange, red, and yellow.  I love houses decorated with hay bales and country scarecrows and the fact that everything in Starbucks is currently pumpkin-flavored. I like a good fall-scented candle and a juicy caramel-covered apple; I’ll even throw caution to the wind and enjoy a hayride once in a blue moon, provided that it’s not a “haunted hayride.” The crisp, cool air… the sound of Kirk Herbstreit and Lou Holtz in my living room every weekend… a smorgasbord of new tailgating treats… These are the kind of fall celebrations I can get into. Not the ghouls, goblins, and undead.