Attending a Christian school during my formative years, we celebrated Halloween with a Halleluiah Festival because Halloween was believed to be a holiday in celebration of the devil. Dressing up as a witch, ghost or scary creature was forbidden. Angels and princesses were preferred.
My mom, however, wasn’t such a critic of the holiday — although she would never let my buy clothing with any skulls on it, but maybe that’s a little beside the point. She would take me and my siblings trick-or-treating for the fun of it. We weren’t actually allowed to eat the candy due to concerns that some lunatics or perverts would poison the sweets or insert shards of glass.
While I
thought she was a little paranoid for making us throw our candies out, I did
find it a little suspicious that I received a Ziploc bag full of popcorn, which
meant that the man giving these out must have spent the afternoon reaching in a
big bag of popcorn to fill up smaller, individual bags. Thanks, I guess.
A few years ago I stumbled upon an article
dispelling the glass-shards-in-candy fear to be an urban legend. There have
never been any reported incidents of such.
An awful waste of so much good candy, but oh
well.
I stopped trick-or-treating about the age of
10 or 11, but still dressed up to accompany my young cousin on her door-ringing
ventures. One of the favorite costumes I wore was a red fringe flapper girl
dress I bought at a vintage shop.
Some of my other costumes for Halloween
night over the years included witches, princesses, an 80s girl and a pirate. It
was mostly princesses (my favorite being Jasmine and once a culturally appropriative
costume of Pocahontas) and a lot of visits to the Disney Store.
There was this one costume I witnessed that
had me legitimately frightened. It was someone dressed up as the Texas Chain
Saw Massacre who had a, from the looks of it, operating chainsaw.
I moved to the grass when he passed by on
the sidewalk.
These days, aside from the movie marathons
on TV, which bring me nostalgia, I can’t say I so much look forward to
Halloween.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Halloween Grinch.
I greatly enjoy admiring the clever costumes of others and love strolling
through the aisles of Hobby Lobby to admire the spooky decorations. I just
can’t muster enough enthusiasm to myself participate.
I’ll share with you all a story from
Halloween a few years ago that is quite ironic.
With no idea of how to celebrate, my best
friend and I decided to go downtown. I was peanut butter; she was jelly. One of
the clubs we went to was very dark — and packed. We were trying to make our way
through the crowds of people when I felt a numbing of my foot. So we headed to
the bathroom to see what was up.
There were two shards of glass lodged
not-too-deep in my right foot. A friend of ours we ran into that night
retrieved gauze to help us take care of it and we went home right after. Oh,
also her car was towed.
To this day, I have two scars on my foot
from those shards of glass.
While I know most college students have
plans for tonight to go to a party or somewhere else to have fun (and good for
them), I am opting out of celebration this year that requires me to leave my
home. My plan is to watch Monster House with my boyfriend and be in bed by 11
p.m.
Probably the next time I’ll dress up —
unless I have special incentive — is when I have kids and will make my family
dress up in coordinating costumes. I’m looking forward to that.
However you decide to celebrate Halloween,
just be safe!