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30 October 2007
Anyone else hate Halloween?→[More:]I am easily squicked and frightened, and I hate flipping channels and seeing gorefests and ghost stories. I can't wait until it all gets replaced with Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, et al.
I like Halloween. I love the kids dressed in their costumes. I like that it is only ONE day. As soon as Thanksgiving hits it's non-stop stress and feeding. I like the day after Christmas. The day after Christmas is when everything goes back to normal.
Halloween doesn't bother me, but the four weeks before Christmas put my teeth on edge. I don't really hate the actual holiday but the surrounding consumer feeding frenzy is downright disgusting. And Christmas carols suck. I used to work retail in the long distant past, and the 8 hour barrage of elevator muzak versions of Christmas carols was unbearable.
I like the creativity of it, but not the creepy gorey weirdness. I consider it the BEGIN marker to Fat Season, which doesn't end until Valentine's Day.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are major dreadfests for me, mostly b/c of the family thing. So I avoid it if at all possible.
I like it, because I like to dress up, and because I don't have to deal with the morons who live near WolfDaddy. Seriously, what are those people thinking?
Ordinarily, I love Halloween. Candy, costumes, pumpkin carving, scary movies... But teaching in the Bronx puts another spin on things. A lot of parents keep their kids home from school on Halloween, afraid of the potential violence. I kept my classroom door locked today (kids ran by and tried it a few times, I'm not sure why). I mentioned in my afternoon class how I was just trying to get home tonight without getting beamed with an egg (it's mischief night, of course). My student laughed and said, "You ain't the only one, sister."
Mum, last night: "Oh, it's going to be Halloween, guess I should go to Sam's Club and get some chips packs."
Me and dad: "Uhhhhh...nobody goes trick-or-treating for chips."
Mum: "Oh, they want candy? Fine, I think we still have a bag of chocolates in the pantry."
Me: "There are bunny wrappers on those chocolates.."
Today she said she thought giving out coupons to McDonald's for Halloween was a good idea.
I hate Halloween and used to lock the door and turn out the lights. Now, I live in a street with only four houses and none of them celebrate Halloween, so I'm happy.
We spend all year telling our kids not to take food from strangers and then send them out in the dark to beg those same strangers for food. Most parents here make the kids throw out any food they get anyway, because they are worried about it being tampered with.
Thanks, I'll take Godwin & Grinches for eight-hundred, Alex.
No idea how Halloween is run in this neighborhood. I'm in an apartment building as ever, but my doorbell is outside (not in a foyer) and I'm on a busy street, so anything's possible. Except for me buying candy. That is not possible.
I love Halloween, and in my college town, i think most people like it...except here it is more like a friday before to the sunday after halloween thing...because you don't want to wear your costume only once!
This year i am dressing as a french fur trapper and my GF is going to be a beaver...bwa-ha-ha...
That said, the other thing i like about halloween is the blatant pagan under/overtones...i hate christmas season, the day itself being rendered pointless after the whole fucking month of bullshit being forced down your throat...
I hate that I can't go to work in costume (which would entail a lot of cammy face paint and a ghillie suit, which doesn't quite work in the office). It's too much of a PITA to put it on between end of work and when I travel to where I'll help hand out candy.
We spend all year telling our kids not to take food from strangers and then send them out in the dark to beg those same strangers for food. Most parents here make the kids throw out any food they get anyway, because they are worried about it being tampered with.
posted by dg
They let them go trick or treating and then make them throw it away? Crazy parents. Tampered with candy is mostly a myth. Children are far more likely to be hit by a car or lightning while trick or treating. Silly parents.
Boo Halloween. I don't like it either. In fact, at this point, I am starting to hate pumpkins, which just seems unfair to a fine gourd. Or squash, or whatever those orange smarmy, fucking jerks are.
I hate the way it's gotten all commercialised. It's supposed to be about the shades of the dead returning to roam the earth. Instead it's all candy this and trick-or-treat that. Kids today have no respect for tradition.
I'm just meh about Halloween. I think it's because I have a bunch of friends who lurrrrrve it, and go all out every year. And I'm like, yeah, just gimme a beer.
No. I fucking love Halloween. It's 1am and I'm still decorating. It's easily one of my favorite holidays. Candy, strobe lights, scaring the bejeezus out of little kids: what's not to like?
Love it.
Loooooove it.
Even more so when i am in a mood to love it.
Not so much the "use it as an excuse to dress slutty" people or the "use it as an excuse to cause damage" people or the other assorted excuse people, but i love the ideas people come up with and people dressing up and interacting with people in costume like some widespread interactive impromptu acting exercise, and people who really get into it--
--although i was going to dress up as several different LOLcats yesterday for pics for you people but didn't have the time.
i don't know what i'm going to be today but i don't restrict my dressing up to commercially sanctioned holidays. i'm keeping this up until it bores me.
I like Halloween, but I have no children for whom I have to make costumes and no parties (usually) for which I have to costume myself. I just like seeing houses all decorated.
I just tried to explain to ikkyu2 my utterly consuming and inexplicable hatred of Thanksgiving and I don't think I managed to convey it. I really like holidays, I really despise Thanksgiving. It's all of the stress, none of the advantages of an actual holiday. Like presents, or children in cute costumes, or Easter chocolate, or champagne. It's just stress.
I also love Christmas, even though it tends to stress me out. There's something redemptive about Christmas stress. Plus, decorated houses.
LOVE Halloween. It may be my favorite holiday, although it kind of sneaked up on me this year and I didn't get to do much Halloween-ish stuff.
I'm a sucker for Xmas, too- lots of hugging, drinking, presents, AND you can throw all the kitschy decorations on your house that time and your electric bill will allow. I'm all over that.
I LOOOOOOOVE Halloween; it's totally my favorite holiday. Usually I decorate the entire house and dress up and hand out candy and go party and throw a big party or two and god, what's not to like? I loved trick or treating as a kid, I loved making costumes for my kids when they were little and I loved that when we lived in Baltimore, all of us adults and all our kids used to dress up and go trick or treating together through the city. Even though my son is almost certainly going to get arrested this year for dressing up in camouflage & a ski mask and running down the street throwing candy at small children, I still think it's FANTASTIC. Right now I am even dressed up at the office with my goofy striped tights and my TWO Halloween charm bracelets and my purple vampire earrings, so suck it, halloween haters!
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
