I'm thinking this will be a new series in which I explore my concepts of upcoming holidays--that is, holidays that I in some form celebrate. If I don't celebrate them, then I have nothing to say about them; so if you want a certain holiday to be talked about, you be the one to talk about it.
As time goes by, I realize more and more that everyone sees something different in holidays--so this series is about what I see in them. Sometimes the question of what a holiday is about is simple and sometimes it is more complicated. I think Halloween is one of the more complicated ones, maybe even more complicated than Christmas, though Christmas is generally the one people have differing attitudes toward while also realizing that they have differing attitudes towards it.
Halloween is one of those holidays that some people have trouble with. Is it a day about embracing the Dark Side, about inviting in the monsters and the ghosts and the demons in a real sense? Or is it just an innocent day of fantasy? I'm not really quite sure. Most people seem to take it as a time to get scared, in the same way that they might watch horror movies just for the fun of it. You dress up and eat candy just for the fun of it. Just for the fun of it is the phrase, and I think there is usually no more depth to the holiday than that.
But I still feel like there is an edge I don't like to veer off of with Halloween. I'm not the type that likes watching horror movies: I don't like it when they scare me and if they don't scare me, there isn't really a point to them. So I obviously stay away from the Haunted Houses and things. And I'm fine with putting out skulls and skeletons because what's wrong with skulls and skeletons? They're just bones and everyone has bones. But I don't like all the gore (I suppose I'm just not a gore person) and I'd rather stay away from the demons and ghouls (like, why would I want to put around or dress as a roach or lice? demons are the same thing to me). Spiders are okay because they're just animals to me--as long as they're not very gross-looking, I'm not really scared of spiders (there are always so many in and around where I live that, well, I have to be used to them).
Let's see. I brought up the dressing up thing. So that should bring me to what I do celebrate with Halloween if not terror, horror, and darkness. I like the chance to dress up, even if it's just wearing my Darth Vader dress from Her Universe. Villains are fine to dress up as; again, I'm just not into the gory or, let's say, frightfully evil costumes. And this year I am seriously considering posing as a twelve year old and going trick or treating (I'm short, so this could work more easily than I'd really like to admit). We all know I love the candy. Then I like to decorate, with Fall things like pumpkins and with black, white, and silver things like skulls, skeletons, vultures, and maybe spiders. Once the weather starts to cool off and the days start getting dark so early, I feel like I need to start decorating for something. So Halloween has kind of turned into my transitional holiday: it's the transition into Fall and the transition into decorating, starting with light and barely visible additions in neutral colors (no orange for me).
And I guess that's about it. Nice and simple and straightforward; that's how my Halloween is. What's yours?
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