Fall is officially here, and with it, the start of the best three-month stretch of the year.
Five years ago, I would’ve been in my element: frantically scouring Spirit Halloween for the perfect, ill-fitting but appropriately scary, costume, planning the exact route my friends and I were taking for optimal candy acquisition and convincing my parents to let us stay out an hour later than initially agreed.
Five years ago, I could feel the excitement in the air, bolstered by the onslaught of cable marketing and promotion. As soon as the sun set on Sept. 30, it was officially the start of the highly-anticipated “Monstober,” and the time when “Hocus Pocus,” “Zombies,” “The Boy Who Cried Werewolf,” and “Invisible Sister” ran like clockwork. All the shows aired their special Halloween episodes, and all the advertisements were appropriately Halloween-themed.
Five years ago, Halloween was fun.
Halloween now means something entirely different than it did back then. And although that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, it’s hard to believe that swapping trick-or-treating and Halloween parades for the notorious Halloweekend is an equal trade-off.
What once was the perfect blend of scary and exciting is now a typical social gathering like any other. Gone are the unattractive but hilarious inflatable dinosaurs, the Scream masks and the trademark grim lurking quietly on the blacktop. The only thing remotely scary about Halloweekend is the number of drinks students seem to think they can reasonably ingest over the span of a few days.
I’ve always dreamed about being one of those adults who go all out for Halloween, expressing their love for the holiday through their fall-themed apartments, complete with bats flying above the mantle, cobwebs draped from the candelabras and dim lights that barely illuminate the hooded figure standing stoically by the staircase. I wish I could skip from being a child during Halloween to being an adult, even if only to give a child the same joy that I felt, looking at a particularly done-up house.
Fortunately, there are ways to enjoy Halloween without ending up blackout drunk. At home, I’d curl up on the couch with “The Conjuring” and a warm mug of cinnamon apple cider. We’d go to nearby small towns that host Halloween festivals, going apple-picking, hay-riding and haunted-house-visiting, finding joy in being chased by a murderous clown with a chainsaw, candy apples lodged in our mouths. And it’s those innocent moments that I miss the most.
This is my first Halloween as a legal adult, and I’m starting to feel it.
But regardless of age, Halloween is a holiday anyone can enjoy. And whether that’s a costume party with friends, (voluntarily) getting lost in a corn maze while running from a suspiciously enthusiastic homicidal scarecrow or a night spent under the blankets with a horror movie and a warm drink, there’s something for everyone.
Even though I miss Halloween and everything it used to be, I’m excited to see how I can make it my own, even in adulthood— and maybe scare some kids while I’m at it.