Sitting in front of my computer on September 30, the clock nears midnight. I can see it just over the horizon; Halloween displays showing up in every store, oversized bags of candy lining the shelves at Walmart, the weather starting to turn colder, and all of a sudden everything is wonderfully, wonderfully spooky. Then 11:59 p.m. turns to 12:00 a.m. Ah, yes. The month of Halloween has begun. Any attempts to inform me that Halloween is not in fact a month-long celebration, but delegated to a single night, will kindly be ignored.
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday, starting from the days of princess costumes and trick or treating. I remember shopping for my costume with my mom being the highlight of the season. Would I be a Disney princess? Hannah Montana? A black cat? In the end it didn’t really matter, because, regardless of what I wore, Halloween never failed to be the spookiest, and best, night of the year.
As I grew older, the holiday started to change. I would ring the doorbell, but instead of smiling faces, I was met with annoyed glares. Costumes available to buy at Halloween stores became less cute or awesome and just simply slutty. I was growing older, and the holiday was irrevocably different.
But who is to say that that just because I grew up, I can’t still enjoy Halloween with the same child-like excitement of my younger self? Who is to say that I can’t still dress up, gorge myself on candy, and scare myself silly with some horror movie? It’s the spookiest time of the year, and nothing, not time or bitter adults, is going to stop that.
Quite honestly, I don’t care that I have to work until 9 p.m. on October 31. You can be darn sure that I’m still going to wear my costume to school. I don’t really care that the only costumes I can buy are the ones that make me feel like the world’s biggest hussy. I’m going to make my own, more modest, costume. But perhaps the best part of this new Halloween is the ability to make it my own. There’s no rule that says I have to limit myself to typical Halloween costumes, because I’m going to be wearing my convention-ready 11th Doctor costume. Halloween is what you make it, and I’m going to make mine nerdy.
