Halloween was one of my favorite holidays growing up and still is to this day. One of my favorite memories is of going trick-or-treating with my cousins one year and coming home with multiple bags filled with candy and sweets. Back then, everyone seemed to enjoy Halloween—children and adults alike had a fondness for the holiday. However, since becoming an adult, Halloween seems to have a different feeling to it every year. Some years it still has that childhood nostalgia and other years it feels bittersweet.
One of the many charms of Halloween is choosing what you want to go as and heading to the famous Spirit Halloween to buy a costume, party supplies, and a fake set of vampire fangs. However, after coming back from the pandemic it seems coming up with costume ideas has almost become like a chore. Sure, it is still fun, but unless you have younger family members, a group of friends or a significant other it is hard not to default back to your costume from last year. And while you can create your own costume, unless you have access to Joann Fabrics, a sewing machine and a lot of money, creating costumes gets very expensive—especially if you only get to wear it for one day out of the entire year.
I cannot speak for others, but I still get to celebrate Halloween with my little brother, who too loves Halloween and all the traditions of it. It sometimes reminds me of how I used to be when I was his age and how my love for the holiday started. But even if you cannot go trick-or-treating with your family or friends, dressing up is still fun no matter how old you get— no matter what anyone says.
Another charm of Halloween is going door-to-door saying “trick or treat” and getting candy, but after the pandemic, that too changed. We were in lockdown and could not leave our houses, so people found a way around the quarantine by buying the candy themselves. By buying the candy yourself you did not have to go out in the dark and cold to have something to cure your sweet tooth. However, as adults, most people go to Halloween parties. This is fine by all means, but unless you are an introvert, parties may not be your preference.
When it comes to parties, I have never been to a Halloween party unless you count the ones from elementary school where it was similar to a middle school dance. I know parties cost a lot, especially if you are a full-time college student with bills to pay. But in my opinion, a Halloween party does not need to be extravagant and huge. You could dress up and watch “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993), “Trick ‘r Treat” (2007) or the “Halloween” franchise and eat candy and call that a party.
And lastly, even decorating now seems like a chore as well. It means heading down into the basement to pull out those fake gravestones and skeletons to make your yard spooky and ready for incoming trick-or-treaters. Now that I am older I see why whenever I wanted to have a decorated yard my grandma put me in charge of it all. It is a lot of work, especially when you have to take it all down the day after Halloween and put it all away again.
When it comes to decorating, you do not need to go all out and buy fake spiderwebs and skeletons. Decorating does not need to be a huge chore as we make it now; you can buy little mini pumpkins and draw little faces on them with a sharpie or make paper bats to hang in your room. We tend to think big when it comes to decorating, but you can still get those Halloween vibes from small decorations without going through a whole paycheck.
When all that is said and done, Halloween can still be fun, even if you are the only one planning on doing something in your friend group. While this is only my opinion, Halloween is still fun to enjoy no matter what you do even if you only do one aspect of Halloween instead of all. As we get older we tend to look at things either optimistically or pessimistically depending on the person. So whether you go out to a party dressed up, go trick-or-treating with your friends, or just sit home and eat candy while watching spooky movies, I want you to take a moment and just enjoy your night—because while getting older sucks, it does not have to kill your love and enjoyment of things and this particular holiday.
