With today being Halloween, I am inspired
to share my thoughts on this holiday that is, and has been, such a large part
of our lives. No matter where you live, in the country or the world, everyone
celebrates Halloween in some manner. Living in China I had the pleasure of
being a part of a kindergarten’s interpretation of Halloween, which was more
organization than fun, as well as seeing the streets full of women donning
light up horns and ears. I felt slightly more like I was at Disney world than
celebrating Halloween in that instance. But this is beside the point.
I have a love/hate relationship with
holidays. Yes, they are a reason to celebrate which I am all for. Regardless of
who you are, everyone likes a nice celebration, a reason to eat, have a drink, dance
around without a care. But then there are those things that you just can’t
stand, that come out of nowhere and can ruin your holiday joy as quickly as
that time you fell off the stage at the club. Mid Gangnam style domination. The
point is, it’s not a pretty sight. And for me, I just can’t get over how much
of a competitive, scandalous holiday it has become.
The thing is, Halloween has always been
an essential aspect of childhood. Key word being CHILD. It’s like the Christmas
morning of the candy gods. Halloween, which was once a day where you would get
together with your friends and run around your neighborhood asking for candy.
The one and only day of the year it is socially acceptable to accept candy from
a stranger. Just make sure the candy is wrapped if you’re visiting an
especially suspect part of town. After the night was done, you would arrive
home, throw all your candy on the living room floor and pick out all the stuff
you liked and all you didn’t. And at the same time hope that your parents
hadn’t given out all the candy that they bought (because you obviously had them
buy only the things you liked. In the anticipation of leftovers). After
assessing your candy stash you would sit there eating as much as you possibly
could, before making yourself sick.
But it seems it has faced the demise of
its former glory as a diabetic coma inducing night (or week) full of eating
Reese’s cups and Milky-ways. Now people will spend obscene amounts of time
and money on costumes that they then wear for one day. To me, it parallels the
concept of a wedding dress. Why yes, I would LOVE to spend $10,000 on a dress
that I am going to wear for maybe 6 hours. With the slight chance I’ll wear it
a few more hours for a trash the dress session. So effectively I have spent an
absurd amount of money in order to buy something and then destroy it? I don’t
know about you, but I could certainly think of a million better ways to spend
that same money. But I digress. I highly doubt anyone spends that much money on
a Halloween costume, but then again they may which still spells out stupidity
to me.
Back to Halloween. Here’s how I see the
process every year. Beginning of October to your friends/significant other, you
might say one of the following: “Hey what should we be?!” “Hey what are
you going to be?” “Do you know what anyone else is going as?”. Or some
variation of these. After the initial inquiry, begins the panic. You begin down
this black hole of thoughts, “Oh wow, that is such a great idea. How are we
going to do it? But wait, is it popular? Will people get it? What if other
people are doing the same idea? I don’t want to have the same costume as other
people. But if we do have the same costume it HAS to be the BEST.” The last one
is the final nail in the coffin. So at some point in October, everyone reaches
this point. They have come up with their costume idea, but now they will do
anything and everything in their power in order to make their costume the best.
You hope that people will literally stop and want to take a picture with you on
account of the celebrity spotting. But in all reality, do you need that
recognition. ( I won’t lie, when I was ten and the five year olds at the
neighborhood trick-or-treat thought I was ACTUALLY Ariel, I enjoyed it. But
then again I was ten years old.) Did you need to spend a week going to every
craft store in the triangle area to find the PERFECT color of tulle for you
skirt, or hat or whatever? No you did not. That was both a waste of your time
and money. Because in all honesty, I don’t think anyone actually cares if you
look so much like a cupcake that someone tries to take a bite out of you.
Albeit, an entertaining story later, not worth the hassle.
Personally I am a huge fan of the
creative costume. And no, not the creative one that everyone and their brother
has done (ex: cereal killer. HA HA HA. No). I like ones that actually didn’t
take that much effort, yet somehow garner quite a positive response. Yes you
need to spend some time getting those creative juices flowing, but it’s probably
a good exercise for your brain. And trust me Facebook will still be there when
you’re done thinking, and the more time you spend, just think of how many more
new posts there will be to stalk! And the thing is, when you actually
think about something that is even mildly unique or different, you can pat
yourself on the back for your creativity. Even if there are some other people
out there with a similar costume, at least you’re not the ten thousandth Lady
Gaga of the day. The thing that really matters is that you enjoy your costume,
I mean if you can’t laugh at yourself, then what’s the point?
The other issue I have is with the
“slutty” costume. And yes, this is targeted at the ladies. But we all know this
costume. It has become more of a theme than any of the professions it typically
accompanies. I mean when is the last time you saw just a “Maid” costume? Never.
No one wants to roll up to the bar in a Molly Maids outfit and ask for a drink.
You’re likely going home alone in that outfit. So instead society has trained
us to come up with outfits that merely reveal every square inch of our body, at
the expense of any sort of originality. It’s like well, if you’re not going to
have the perfect costume, show a little cleavage and that will improve
everything. And here’s the thing, I’m not against showing a little skin. I’m
not going to go and say this trend of costumes is a terrible degradation of
women, because it’s really not. Quite frankly women often do it to themselves.
No one forced you to prance around in that outfit that effectively covers only
the essentials. But we’re conditioned to think that this is how we should dress up. Venturing into the night, scantily clad
in the hopes of piquing the interest of that Sponge Bob – No pants you’ve been
eyeing all night.
But I say down with the normal. No, I’m
not saying you need to go reenacting that episode of friends where Joey wears
every single piece of Chandler’s clothing, this Halloween. Rather I am offering
an alternative. Actually two. My first is, if you are a female, maybe you
should take this whole slutty concept and run with it. I mean don’t be that
person wearing the prepackaged slutty outfit, hot from the factories of China,
spice it up. BE CREATIVE. Crazy thought right? Take something, which never, in
a million years could ever be sexy and make it sexy. People will be both amused
and in awe by your skills. If you’re drawing a blank, i’ll get you started.
Frosted Flakes: Not sexy. Untilllll you write “they’re grrrrrrrreat” across
your chest. Perks: you don’t have to be half naked and it has a slight hint of
slut. My other suggestion is hey ladies, let’s turn this sexy thing back on the
guys. I mean yeah, every once in a while you get a fireman or policeman or
whatnot. But come on guys, stop being lumberjacks and add some sex appeal. But remember,
points for creativity. Canadian Tarzan anyone?
