Sunday, October 31, 2010

5 Things I Hate About Halloween



Halloween is NOT my favorite holiday.  In fact, I don't even consider it a holiday.  Another fact:  I hated it when I was a kid.  Now that I live in the Rocky Mountains--two miles from the highway up an unpaved road--Halloween is no longer part of my life.  Until people bring it to my attention:  like my granddaughters and people posting on Facebook.

I have two younger brothers and, when we were kids, they loved scaring me out of my wits on Halloween...and every other day.  Of course, I was a girly-girl and a chicken, so it didn't take much.  They convinced me that monsters lived in the crawlspace (which is why I dragged my parents' case of 78 records over the door hatch in the closet each night before climbing into bed) and that if I allowed my arms and legs to dangle over the bed at night, snakes and other creatures would nibble on them as I slept.  Living with those two, every day was Halloween.

Candy is the only good thing about Halloween.  Good, mind you, not great.  Although I'm not fond of milk and white chocolate, I adore dark chocolate.  Especially with almonds, walnuts, or pecans.  Licorice is pretty good and so are gum drops.  Unfortunately, I seldom found either being passed out as Halloween treats.  Dressing up was okay--when my mother allowed me to be a princess.  Which she seldom did.  Sigh.

Okay, enough whining.  Here's my list--the five things I hate about Halloween:
  1. Being outside in the dark
  2. Monsters
  3. Screaming
  4. Being scared
  5. Remembering being outside in the dark and scared out of my wits by all the screaming monsters in costumes.
What do you hate about Halloween?

(Photo by Luigi Diamonte)

3 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about the scaring out of your wits. I suppose that's what boys do though.

    I hate checking my kids candy. I go over each individual candy with a magnifying glass. Can never be too cautious. Other than that, I love Halloween.

    Take care,
    Chary

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  2. At the risk of being labelled a Scrooge, killjoy and the rest, I'll confess that there's nothing whatsoever I like about Halloween. Until the past few years, it wasn't even part of the cultural landscape in England (although there was a form of it in Scotland). If people want to dress up and have a good time, I'm all for it. But Halloween assumes that everyone buys into it - we can't choose not to. 'Trick or treat' (or, as it used to be called, demanding money with menaces), drags us all into this enforced gaiety. (Mutter, mutter, grumble, 'Bah Humbug', etc., etc.) As for giving away chocolate - I need every morsel of that for myself. Happy Halloween.

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  3. Chary, I remember going through my kids' bags of candy and tossing out anything that was loose, not tightly wrapped, or unusual. Glad you enjoy the holiday.

    Bill, Like you, I'm a Scrooge. Enforced gaiety, indeed!

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