Dear Halloween
Has nothing to do with my reasoning, but I thought it was hilarious... Deal with it.
Let's get this straight: I've never celebrated you, Halloween. Everything I will say in this letter is a third-party observation. Halloween, I grew up in a devout Christian household, so quite frankly, I've never been exposed to all of your 'greatness'. That said, I can see your allure for small children, whose addiction to sweet treats and dressing up like cartoon characters is almost crack-like. My beef with you, Halloween, is what happens when constituents of my age bracket start planning for you.
Enter the waning weeks of October. Everywhere I go I see parties (the adult version), decorations and general regalia dealing with you. And I wonder, 'Why?'. As young adults, what really is the point of dressing in costumes to do what they do on weekends anyway? Drinking and dancing seem a lot more cumbersome when donning masks, bad makeup and other random props. Also, not to be sexist, Halloween, but your occurrence is nothing more than an excuse for women to be half naked during the late-fall freeze. Why wait until a kids holiday to do that? Why not walk around drunk in a cutoff pirate uniform in mid-January? For men, you're an even stranger holiday. What do I look like dressing up as a policeman, at night nonetheless?
It's not that I'm against you. It's that after a certain age point, you don't have any use. In the same way that Christmas loses it's magic when one finds out that Santa was indeed their father, and one's birthday falls off when their parents stop throwing extravagant theme parties, you become another day on the calendar with a funny font. Halloween, maybe it's the cynic in me causing this feeling. Maybe its the household I grew up in. Maybe it's that I hate wigs more than I hate waiting in line at the convenience store. Whatever the case, Halloween, I won't be dressing up. Sure, I'll be at the gatherings and engage in whatever buffoonery taking place. But I won't do it simply because you're here. Holidays tend to make people into fools for that holiday. Ghosts and the like aren't real. Nor are the traditions we make up. In fact, the real reason behind the costumes was to disguise oneself for the impending influx of dead spirits that would be wandering as the portal between our world and the underworld opened momentarily. Does that mean after you, some spirits will still be hobbling around? No. It means most will have spent their hard earned cents on apparel that won't be of any use on November 1st. That I can pass on... Even if my sweet tooth does lead to some serious binge candy eating. Happy All Hollows Day to my future cavities and those that won't be scraping fake blood and cobwebs off for the next week...
