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Subscribe to RSSIt’s time for me to reveal a deep, dark secret. I’ve repressed it so long, even I had trouble owning up to it. I hate Halloween.
Maybe it all started the year someone singled me out in a pack of trick-or-treaters and shouted, “Oh, who’s that cute little boy in the cat costume?!”
Maybe it’s the annual wasting of money better spent on anything but candy and overpriced costumes.
Read more: TODAY Moms-iVillage poll reveals one in 10 parents hates Halloween!
Sure, I’ve looked happy in plenty of Halloween photos. But it’s all been an act. And those rare occasions when I rallied and showed up at a costume party? Yes, I almost didn’t go because of my utter lack of desire to A) think of a costume or B) wear it.
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I fooled everyone the year I rocked Madonna in cone boobs. I came close to enjoying myself the year my husband, who was fresh out of law school, and I dressed up as each other: he in a blonde wig and stuffed bra, and I in a ratty sweatshirt carrying a cardboard sign that read “Will Sue for Food.”
When I was pregnant with our first child, my husband and I flicked off our lights on Oct. 31 and went out to a bar. It was lovely, despite the pit in my stomach I felt as I realized it was going to be the last Halloween I could ignore without guilt.
For my daughter’s trick-or-treating debut, I naïvely hoped to avoid coming home with gobs of Sweet Tarts and Dum Dums by tacking a sign onto her candy bucket that proclaimed, “I’m collecting donations for the food bank!”
I was more than a little cheesed that not a single grown-up bothered to A) acknowledge it, B) give her spare change instead of candy or C) congratulate me for being an extraordinarily do-goody do-gooder mom.
It’s not the sugar highs and ensuing meltdowns that make me loathe all candy-crazed holidays (yes, I’m that awful – I hate Valentine’s Day and Easter, too). It’s the sun-up-to-sundown pleas for “just one more piece, Mom. Pleeeeeeeeeease!” My cold, frowny “Not until after dinner” replies touch off tantrums laced with zingers like, “I hate you! You’re a BAD mommy!!!”
Last year, I managed to lighten the load of candy we brought home by supplying my kids with candy buckets the size of coin purses. They were astonished at how quickly they filled up. I was delighted.
Maybe this year, I’ll try to get them excited about donating their Halloween loot to one of those buy-back deals where they’ll get a toothbrush for every pound of candy they send to the troops.
Oooh. Yeah. That could be my ticket to Oct. 31 sanity.
I will say this much: Cheapskate that I am, I found it highly satisfying a few weeks ago to score a $5 Pet Doctor lab coat for my daughter, which looks awesome with her Fisher-Price doctor’s kit. And my son’s going to be the cutest $7 monkey ever. Together, they will be unstoppably cute.
Cute enough for me to pretend that I’m not already dreading Halloween 2012.
Courtesy Liz Murtaugh Gillespie
Liz Murtaugh Gillespie smiles through her Halloween pain with her daughter Sylvia (horsie on the left), son Tyler (Dalmatian on the right) and pug Pepper (jailbird who clearly wishes she were doing anything but joining the trick-or-treating "fun").
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Check out Operation Gratitude. You can send them all your Halloween Candy that they hand out in whatever country they are stationed at. Great way to support an organization at minimal cost to you and also a noble way of getting rid of the candy in a hurry!
I agree with what Nicole Chapadeau Reuter said above. It's a great idea. I don't have time to get to a dentist so what I do is, I bring in any unwanted candy to work, and put it in a bowl on my desk. Within 2-3 days, it's been eaten by my co-workers.
I am with ya on this, I HATE HALLOWEEN. I was born Oct 30th at 11:45 PM and every b-day party my parents, friends and relatives threw for me was always a custome party with stupid halloween decoations and halloween related gifts. When I turned 14 I said NO THANKS and wanted a break from the halloween hoopla only to be "surprised" with a halloween party by a friends parents. That ended halloween for me FOREVER. Now 24 years later I still despise halloween and will not go to a custome party REGARDLESS of what time of year it is. My front porch light is always off on halloween and I usaully just leave the house, because some kids and parents don't see to realize that no front porch light means no knocking on my door. I am also glad to see stores put out x-mas decorations in October as it tends to overwhelm the halloween stuff.
And if I had kids... they too would have no halloween. I know.. I am a mean person.
your dead!!! don't have kids!!!! it's a great holiday for everyone who is alive!!
The author "HATES" Easter?
I love Halloween. It's the only holiday for me that's stress free and just plain fun. But I don't have any kids so that might have something to do with it. Now Christmas is an over rated pain in the ass holiday.
I love Halloween too, Diane, and I do have kids, but they're adults now, but we had fun when they were little. I come from a long line of "hams" and get a kick out of dressing up and making a fool of myself.
But I'm "up to here" with Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are my personal pains in the ass holidays.
Wow, I guess you all should be lucky that you have lives great and secure enough that all you have to do is bitch about a holiday that kids, and many adults, love... and yeah, you "hate" Easter too? I hope you aren't religious because Easter is not about candy, it's the most important Christian holy day. Your holidays are what you make of them. You're just like the people who "hate" Christmas because it's so commercialized. Get over it and celebrate it how you see fit.
I know you can go to a bar and NOT drink alcohol, but am I the only one who read this and immediately stopped like "WTF?"
You can drink alcohol when pregnant; you just have to be careful with the amount. I even once read an article in which a woman said in her ninth month of pregnancy, she was stressed out, and her doctor "prescribed" her a martini (that is, to go to the bar, drink a small amount, and relax).
Yep, I had to re-read that, too. Not that I have a lot of room to talk ... I never went to a bar while I was pregnant but I was on doctors orders to have one beer a week or one glass of red wine a day because I was severely anemic and my medication was not helping bring up my iron levels.
WOW so glad you're not my mom, you are miserable. I loved taking my kid trick or treating, dressing him up, decorating the house and yes, OMG we ate candy all day long. And on Christmas morning he gets donuts for breakfast-his favorite and Easter morning -candy. Do you really think that enjoying your kids childhood a few special days out of the whole year is painful? How sad for you. You have beautiful kids to have fun with, go crazy, eat a hershey bar, you might like it.
I agree with you on that bar thing -- yes not drink but the smoke alone would be enough for me not to go..
She should be happy that she has kids there are so many people out there that can't have kids they would love to take her kids out to trick or treat.. Yes it can be a long night but your kids are only little for so long -- sunk it up and have fun with your kids -- This will probably be my sons last one he will be 12 next year...
in our state u can't smoke in any bar ,resturant,or public building and next year ,which is great to me never smoked and when there wasn't a law banning smoking i hardly went to bars ,no outside in public smoking will be allowed,or in a car with any under 16 year old child, makes me happy,
The author did state she still dresses her kids up and takes them trick or treating. In fact the picture is of the author and her kids. And as someone who hates Halloween, I hate it because my mom forced it on me so badly. So for your kids sake, don't make them dress up or go trick or treating because you want them to, but because they want to. Like I said above, I despise Halloween because of my parent's exuberance for the holiday and forcing me to part take in the holiday to the fullest extent possible.
As for easter, the part of easter she hate is the candy and bunny stuff, not the religion stuff, unless well she is atheist like me and then easter is just spring break. X-Mas, Easter and Halloween are no commercial holidays that happen to occur when some religions have religious events. And anyone who is religous shouldn't be celebrating Halloween as Halloween is strictly a pagen ritual to scare off evil spirts before All Hallow Day which is November 1st.. The whole thing is is loosely based on paganism, but most christain faiths have succumb to pressure to accept Halloween as something fun for kids to do.
Good for you, one of the few who is willing to acknowledge the pagan origins of this "holiday"!! EVERY day we should take some time to have fun with our kids; at our house we dress up throughout the year and just have a blast. No worries about candy, no concerns regarding abductions, no stress of having to watch for cars so our kids don't get hurt/killed. I'm not an atheist, but I'm with you on this one 100%
I'm not a fan of Halloween either. First, my kids have food allergy issues (milk, red dye) so Halloween is not really fun for them since they can't eat 95% of the candy. Plus I'm so tired of having to feel like there is something wrong with me because I refuse to buy overpriced costumes to wear one day!
I'm becoming real fond of Halloween. Every year my neighbor and I (both retired) go WAY overboard decorating our yards. This year I have, among other things, an 8-foot-tall headless horseman, a pirate ship crewed by skeletons, a railroad train full of monsters, and 3 huge dinosaur skeletons, all of which I made in my workshop. By Halloween night, I'll have added sound (a CD of spooky songs & music) and a big-screen TV in the window showing classic horror films. My wife & I love it when the little ones come around for trick-or-treat. Next year - the Grim Reaper on a motorcycle.
Kudos to StoneCold. That's the way I remember Halloween as a child. In our neighborhood, everyone went way out to decorate. It was great for the kids (like me), like a theme park! Decorations in the yard as you approached the house, spooky music playing faintly behind the front door...perhaps a figure on the front porch that might spring up and say Boo!
Ration the candy...you're the parent! But for Pete's sake, let the kids enjoy this one night to dress up and go door to door (with you in attendance, of course). We as the older generation have learned after the fact that Halloween means more than trick or treating....pagan holidays, etc. But the kids! All they know is that it's a fun night to dress up in costumes and get candy....and entertainment! Let them have the fun before they grow up...
The little girl next door (4 years old) has already told me she's going to dress up as a bride. Now THERE'S a scary costume. Oh well, let her get it out of her system now.
It could be worse, she could have wanted to dress up as a playboy bunny.
Geez, it's the one big no-pressure holiday we have, and people hate it. It's cool, I dread Christmas.
yes, I'm a born again christian, yes I hate what halloween represents, I fear for the unknowing, for what the satanist do at this time, but I do partisapate and decorate just enough to let the people know that their childern are welcome here, we do give out candy and hawoleen christian tracts, hopefully the message of God's love for them, gets out to the kids and their parents. God bless you all Nick <><
I have never liked Halloween myself. I went out trick or treating only one time when I was 5 years old...hated it. I remember near the end of that night, I was so annoyed with it, that a lady about 50 or so, asked me "so what are you supposed to be, little guy?" I responded, "I'm supposed to be done by now, give me the candy" And that was it, if I ever have kids I will do my best to instill in them also, a strong dislike for Halloween. Me and my woman could very easily treat them to a great celebration of fun. Maybe take them to a haunted house or something else.
Well, I liked the holiday as a youngster. We would get a real pumpkin out of the garden, clean out the inside and carve a nose, eyes, and mouth. Then, we would put a real lighted candle inside. If we were careful and went around the top at an angle, the growing stem along with its top section, could be placed back on the pumpkin for a weather cover. The carry handle was usually just baler twine run through a punched hole. Anyone remember those days? Now I just watch the neighbors have their enjoyment and receive candy goblins at the front door.
Not a fan of the Halloween either. I call it Beggar-ween. haha...
Not the biggest fan of Halloween, but only in the sense that I am not that mom that Decorates every square inch of my house in pumpkins and goblins.. I don't really mind taking the little one out trick or treating..
I do however detest Costume parties.. I don't like to get dressed up in a costume because I have no imagination and my vision usually doesn't come out in what I wind up with. (I do go to them and I do try and have a good time and the costume is usually gone and im back in regular clothes in 10 min)
EASTER... Well I don't hate that holiday.. I also think that easter's meaning has been lost. because of commercialism.. Bunnies, and candy?? Ummm Not Quite!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE Halloween! It is my favorite holiday of the year. There are no melt-downs over "one more piece" in my house due to the fact that my kids are told before hand that they get three pieces when we get home and one piece after each meal for the next few days and since this is how we do candy any other time of year, they happily accept it. And who pays for over priced costumes that get worn one day out of the year? My kids slap wear their costumes out throughout the year playing superhero or whatever :) random little non-halloween costume parties are fun for them.