Only Because Everyone Else Is Doing It
Posted By jayna on November 3, 2009
I’ve come away from Halloween this year extremely conflicted. One half still loves the costumes, the silly decorations and the harmless parading of cuteness. The other half wants to lock my children inside for the month of October and never partake in the gruesome displays and masked greed and dark part of the holiday.
I spent countless drives speeding past horrific front yard scenes and avoided store aisles with adult costumes. I spent countless hours holed up in my sewing room constructing and seized every opportunity to show off the girls, all dressed up. I held my daughter’s shaking hand and reassured her that everything she was seeing on the sidewalks around her was make believe, and then I led her up pathways and taught her to take candy from strangers. I saw her forget her manners and focus only on the prize, as many two year olds would.
I put too much time into perfecting cuteness and shielding the ugly.
Very conflicted here.
There’s going to be a lot of thinking before next October rolls around on this newly discovered personal obstacle.
She looks absolutely adorable, sorry the scariness of the world got to you this halloween, maybe after another year you will have forgotten and brave it again.
I'm with you on this one. We've never done scary, and still don't. I've never decorated for Halloween, just for fall. The kids dress up in "cute" costumes and we drive them to the houses of friends, neighbors, and relatives. We log about 50 miles through the course of a several-hours long night, but we feel that it's safer and more fun for the kids. Sure, it's about getting candy, but it's also about chatting and posing for photos with people we know.
And that's my 2 cents. Unfortunately it took up $20 worth of comment space.
I'm with you, I was having a very grinchlike mood towards halloween this year. Tired of all the scary crap, tired of the teenagers not dressed up begging for candy. So this Halloween we started a new tradition. The kids got costumes still to wear for school and dance class, but on Halloween night, we stayed in. We ordered pizza, we ate candy, we ate popcorn with chocolate chips in it. We watched movies. And at bedtime, my 9 yr old daughter told me it was the best Halloween ever, and I agreed.
Last year, I was right there with you. This year, though, something clicked for Alexis and she started to see the difference between Real Scary and Make Believe Scary. The Make Believe Scary is SOOO much more fun now that she gets it.
That costume is adorable, great job!