What is the meaning of Halloween? It seems to have changed over the years. Growing up in the 1990s, it was all about the elementary school parade and the candy we’d receive from the neighbors at night with the added fear we might swallow a razor blade in a Snickers bar.
Somewhere along the way, Halloween became different. It’s not even about the trick-or-treating anymore. Kids will do a “trunk-or-treat” where they meet in a parking lot and take candy out of the trunks of strangers. Somehow, this is safer.
Halloween has somehow evolved into a mild celebration for children and an opportunity for adults to get a little tipsy on a weekday while dressed as something they aren’t. They choose to go with a more frightening version of a regular occupation or a more seductive one.
Halloween is a ghoulish holiday with a great theme: horror. Sometimes it gets a little sexy. Other times it’s an expression of humor.
The holiday can mean a lot of different things to different people. In any case, it’s possibly the least practical of the major holidays out there. As a non-participant in the Halloween festivities for as long as I can remember, I have to ask, what’s the point?
Happy Halloween, why are we celebrating anyway?
Allow me, at least today, to rain on your Halloween pride. I’m not insulting any religious belief outside of a witch’s coven. Nobody can be offended by any derogatory words thrown at this holiday. That’s because Halloween is to single people what Valentine’s Day is to the lovestruck folks. It’s a marketing event.
A lot of money is wasted on Halloween. The costumes alone are ridiculously priced. Most people won’t even be the same thing every year which means you’re buying an outfit that gets used once. Only Allen Iverson can get away with that.
Halloween can be a fun and unique holiday. It’s the one time of a year where a man in a bloody mask can walk around freely with a chainsaw and feel like he belongs. It’s a day to revisit childish desires. For an evening, you can be a professional football player and have no athletic ability. Halloween night gives us an opportunity to be frauds.
As someone who isn’t a fan of change of any kind, except maybe underpants, the way Halloween has evolved makes it just another day. I don’t dress up. I won’t even dig out the fake pumpkin from the basement to put on display in front of our house. October 31 is no more fun for me than any other day of the year. There isn’t even a day off from work for it yet Halloween falls in line as one of the big holidays in the United States. How can that be when there isn’t a day off involved?
Halloween seems to only get more popular with some people even if its meaning changes. The horror genre will always have fans. People never cease to find an excuse to not decorate their homes for the season.
The greatest purpose Halloween does serve is to give us a reminder that Thanksgiving is coming up. October needs some sort of holiday with traditions unlike Columbus Day/Indigenous People’s Day where the only tradition is getting frustrated when the bank is closed. I get it. We need Halloween on the schedule. How else would we know when the new Saw movie is scheduled to come out?
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