The spookiest night of the year is upon us but will you be dressing up to celebrate? Or are you a parent who enjoys wrapping their child in loo roll before they harvest sweets from the neighbours?
Like past Conversation writers, I love Halloween. While I might be a bit too old now to go door-to-door in costume telling bad jokes to my neighbours and asking for sweets in return, the holiday still excites me. I love seeing the shops full of Halloween decorations and I’ll still spend weeks putting together a costume for a night out with my friends.
My costumes have come a long way since the days of being wrapped up in toilet paper by my mum, or throwing on a black wig and telling people I was Morticia Addams (despite never actually having seen the Addams Family at the ripe old age of nine).
Now, I revel in having the opportunity to plan a costume, flex my make-up skills, and put together a new identity for the night. I appreciate the convenience of buying a costume, but for me, the fun of Halloween lies in coming up with an idea and making a little project of it.
Ghostly and grown up
However, this will be my first Halloween working full time. As such, I haven’t had the free time I had as a student to dedicate to carefully crafting my costume, and I’m getting slightly panicky at the thought of turning up on the 31st in half-baked fancy dress.
It’s also my first Halloween in London, and truth be told, I am not looking forward to the two-hour night bus journey home from north to south London on my own at the end of the night whilst I’m still dressed in whatever ridiculous costume I decide on.
So now may be the point in my life where I should start to make peace with the fact that I can’t be a kid forever, and that the years of dressing up for Halloween – whether it was to go trick-or-treating or enjoying some time with my friends – may be coming to an end.
Forever trick or treating
However, that does mean I can start looking forward to the days where I have a kid of my own that I get to dress up in a ridiculous Halloween costume. I unashamedly aspire to be the kind of parent who goes viral on Twitter for their hilarious and/or adorable parent-and-child costumes. Maybe I’ll break out the Morticia Addams wig again, but with a little Wednesday or Pugsley Addams in tow.
Do you or your kids enjoy celebrating Halloween? How are you preparing for it this year? Or does the thought of spending all that money on Halloween costumes give you a fright?
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