Hating Halloween – how I’m doing things differently this year
Growing up I dreaded October 31st. It meant you’d have to find a great costume, trick or treat or attend some party where every one thinks it’s cool to be in disguise. People go to great lengths to dress up – it means a lot to them.
When I think of what Halloween stands for, I get completely turned off. It’s a gruesome day where most to the nation encourages kids to love the spookiness and darkness of this day. Don’t we have enough scary shit in this world? Do we really need a day where fake blood is painted on kid’s faces and chopped-off rubber hands creeping from front yards?
Okay so I’m an anti-Halloween mom. Yes, my kids DO dress up and dad takes them out, but I’d rather stay home and give out candy to see just what costumes come walking up on my porch. I find it fascinating that parents let babies and toddlers dress up when the child is clueless as to why their taking candy from strangers in the dark when they’re should be in bed!
And clearly the best treat of all is when we dump the candy out of my kid’s bags and see what they’ve got. Highly fake, colored, hard items that we call ‘candy.’ My kids have gotten into the practice of dumping the most artificial items in the trash. They keep the chocolate and peanut buttery stuff. The worst of item of all is that gross giant ‘diamond ring’ or ‘pacifier’ that is neon green or blue. We seem to always end up with one.
For years we’d only put up cutsie decorations – rats, cats, spider webs… Never zombies or cut off heads. My kids were too young and were afraid of entering costumes stores so we made a sensitive decision not to spookify our yard or home while they are young. My kids prefer creative costumes like Star Wars, Albert Einstein and Indiana Jones. My kids have basically commercialized Halloween I like to say! This year I’m sure it will be the Avengers.
This year? I’ll let a bloody item be staked into the grass. If they’re ready for that, then so be it. But as far as the candy goes. I’m on a mission to un-junk the kids who dare to come on my porch! To learn more about the influential brand who has won over my kids and me, check out this site GetUnreal.com – we have no doubts that you’ll appreciate their mission too. As you can see their video above pretty much says it all. WOW.