Remembering how to care about Halloween
Trick or treat.
Forgive the lack of enthusiasm, it’s just a little hard to care anymore. It’s not even a question, it’s just a statement: trick or treat. We say it because for some reason, on Oct. 31, we have to. I know I’ll get caught doing so at least once.
Come Oct. 31 I won’t likely be in costume, or trying to scare people. I’ll likely either be in class or in a meeting—both of which are scary enough on their own. The obsession, for me, wears just a little thin.
I used to enjoy trick or treating. I always remember coming home afterwards to watch the hockey game, sort candy, and so on. Now I tend to try and go home each year to help give out the candy, but even that’s harder and harder to do, though I will admit that a little bit of the old magic comes back if Montreal and Toronto happen to be playing that night.
School commitments and other such stress this time of year is common and an expendable Monday night rare. I carry a certain envy for those who will spend the evening partying and frolicking, enjoying themselves, being carefree and stuffing themselves with either as much alcohol or as much candy as they can stomach (or both, in some cases).
I’ve been known to avoid these sorts of things, but a certain part of me envies it. There must be something more to this that I’m missing.
Halloween is an old, old tradition and it pops up in the most delightfully unlikely places. Novels, newspaper mastheads, classes, and just people on the street. It’s a bit of a fanatical time. Who can blame people for seeking some sort of safe release from everything else?
Come this time of year, we need to let loose and have some fun. There’s a weird nostalgia that Halloween commands—something about all those childhood memories, I suspect.
When everything gets darker and colder the night is more total. There’s a magic that makes those costumes seem real. Everyone’s hard to recognize for awhile. Much as I may drift further and further from Halloween, it would feel wrong to miss it somehow.
So why don’t we all embrace the spirit of the evening, a certain rebelliousness, shall we say? Go out and repeat the oft-repeated—trick or treat! I’ll even go so far as to cancel the Gazette staff meeting. Or maybe I’m just tricking you.
Either way, I expect lots of scary good stories next week.
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