I Really Want To Like Halloween, But I Feel Like A Halloween Misfit

shutterstock_128495723This weekend my Facebook feed was full of friends in awesome day-glo ’80s outfits, chic Corpse Brides and kick-ass Cinderellas.  The parties they attended looked fun with cotton candy spiderwebs (yum!), caramel apples and bobbing for donuts.  It looked like an all-around great time, and not just by Facebook standards.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I was missing out because I’m not at all a fan of the holiday.  I feel like a Halloween misfit.

I guess I’ve never understood Halloween.  Trick-or-treating is fun, but no kid can actually eat all the candy they get.  I remember some of my candy sitting around for months, hard and uninteresting by spring.  And the costumes?  Even as a young child I saw the costume part as just a means to a candy end.  I am pretty sure I was a witch with a black dress, a green face and a black hat for every year of elementary school.
Then of course, there’s the point in life when trick-or-treating isn’t particularly fun and now you have to come up with some awesome costume.  I swear, I am creative with words, but art projects are not my thing.  I remember my college roommate glue-gunning glow-in-the-dark stars to a pair of Urban Outfitter boy short underwear that perfectly finished her DIY Wonder Woman costume.  I thought to myself, why can’t I come up with something as cool as that?  Even my less artsy roommates got into the spirit, scouring Boston for cute Strawberry Shortcake outfits, the perfect wig for Cleopatra or a gingham dress like Dorothy.  Me?  I rummaged through my drawers for something red to be a devil.  Again.
I met my Halloween misfit soulmate in my husband.  Together we had no problem mailing it in for a friend’s costume party or even staying home altogether.  When we had it narrowed down to three dates for our wedding, we opted for the latest one in October.  Because then we’d be sure to be on our honeymoon for Halloween.  How lame is that?
Now that I’m a mother to two children I feel like I need to step up my Halloween game. Sure, my son seems to have inherited his parents’ “not interested” gene, but this is the first Halloween where my daughter is looking forward to participating.  She’s picked out her owl costume and she’s practicing her “trick-or-treat” screech.  I promise not to bring her down.  I can’t do that as a mother.
I don’t hate on Halloween, I just don’t really know how to do it right.  I don’t think I have the creativity, the enthusiasm or the craftiness I think I need or I see in my friends.  But I want to try.  Really I do.

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