Halloween Must DIE

Last year when I had only begun blogging I made a post about Halloween. Basically the gist of it is that I think Halloween is a stupid holiday and that entertainment centered around fear is kind of dumb. Now I must admit it was a bit rough; I hardly ever, EVER use the words dumb and stupid. I think that there are usually much better words to convey my thoughts. But as you can see, I had made an exception in that case because I felt so strongly about the subject. I figure this post will be very similar to the one I wrote last year, though perhaps with a more amiable tongue.

When you first think of Halloween, what comes to your head? Trick or treat? Pumpkins? Gore, blood, and grotesque things of all shapes and sizes? No matter how much we might want for Halloween to be simply the time of year where strangers give out free candy, I'm sure you are familiar enough with the history of Halloween to know that it cannot stay restrained to putting on costumes and getting candy. I mean seriously, around this time I dread going into stores because I know that there will be tons of downright disgusting displays absolutely everywhere. I don't know about you, but disembodied body body parts really aren't appealing to me. Neither are skeletons, skulls, ghosts, witches, werewolves, etc. Do we really need a holiday glorifying such things?

I'm not saying that dressing up and going around town to get candy is bad (in fact, I bet it would be more fun as a teenager with friends than as a little kid). I just think that the entire holiday is flawed, and I am sensing no change towards the better. To the contrary, it seems to get drearier and drearier every year. Of course, it is possible that things are staying the same and I and as I get older I only began to see how wrong it is, but I digress. The entire "fear as entertainment thing" must be the first to go. Perhaps if I saw a shift away from the grotesqueness that so fills Halloween these days I might suppose that it is possible that there is a shred of hope for the holiday.

But, even if Halloween is indeed as flawed as I believe it is, would getting rid of it even help at this point? After all, even if Halloween is a partial root for all of this creepy nonsense at this time of year, it is ridiculous to assume that those things would wither away if Halloween was to die. And in the process, the only innocent part of Halloween (the candy) would also be gone. Many children live perfectly good lives without ever going trick or treating, but I must say that I'm sure that many families have pleasant memories of such things. But if it was likely that the atmosphere would change as a result, then I would be all for the removal of the holiday. However, as I have previously stated, it is not. Halloween, though I might like to shovel blame on it, is not the problem. It is what we make of it. Although the title of this post is "Halloween must DIE", the DIE part is mostly because I couldn't resist inserting it into the title. What Halloween really needs is a new direction. I hear that as some people begin to get the foolish impression that they have outgrown getting candy. Such thinking is of course preposterous, but the point is that when people get older I (think) that as a replacement Halloween centers more around costume parties than trick or treating. I of course have no idea if that is the right sort of direction that holiday should go or not, but I'm just mentioning it. Because I can. And no one can stop me. Ever. So to sum up, not everything is bad about Halloween, but some parts are beyond repair. Will I continue to boycott it anyway? Sure. But that's because I'm not a very logical fellow.