Spin the wheels

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?