A chaotic Halloween

Earlier this year, I decided on one thing: I would embrace the spirit of Halloween all year long. That included indulging in all things horror and spooky. Halloween has been a favorite holiday of mine for a very long time – maybe because a day where the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest is something I can get behind! How cool is it that it's a day where the dead can freely roam the Earth and communicate with others? (Sidenote: I have definitely seen a lot more ghosts in my home than usual at this time of year.) I have been interested in ghosts, spooks, spirits and entities for a long time, and so of course I am obsessed with Halloween. It’s the one day of the year that I can let my “dark side” and “ghosty side” shine in all its glory!

And, you know, I thought all that obsession and planning was going to pay off when Halloween eventually came around. I thought it was gonna be a big event and that we would totally rock Halloween this year.

Well, that’s what I had hoped. It didn’t exactly turn out that way.

The first thing that went wrong is that we didn’t end up with a lot of money to spend on Halloween. Sure, I got Halloween decorations in early October, but not much was left for costumes, food and pumpkins. Not after spending a ton of money on both of our kids’ birthdays. Then our washing machine decided to conk out on us right before Halloween so we had to get a new one!

The second thing that went wrong is that I got sick. I came down with a nasty cold that had me out of commission for a while there. Fortunately, though, I was better by the time Halloween rolled around, but I was unable to leave the house for a couple of days because I was so sick so I was not able to get extra things we needed – like a couple of pumpkins! In fact, I had hoped we would’ve been able to go to Lone Pine Farm to get pumpkins, but Jesse was sick with a terrible cough for a couple of weeks. Then my husband was sick. Then I was sick!

So I had hoped that we could still get pumpkins on Halloween. But guess what? When my husband went to buy them today, they were ALL GONE! So were all the costumes. (Fortunately, we managed to get Jesse a costume earlier in the month.) So, we were pumpkin-less this year. Although I had a fake pumpkin outside (as part of the Halloween decorations) but that’s not the same thing!

And unfortunately, my daughter could not get a costume. So we brainstormed on a whole bunch of ideas for DIY costumes. (As a kid, I often wore a sheet to pass as a ghost on Halloween! One year, I wore my dad’s long-sleeve black shirt and, with my black jeans, I was a Jedi.) She finally settled on something but when her BFF came over on Halloween night, she helped my daughter to customize her costume and make it cooler. Yay!

And oh yeah, we still managed to get some candy. Kinda funny thing about that too: We didn’t get candy for trick-or-treaters until today! (Like I said, sickness had invaded my house this month. My daughter is the only one who didn’t get sick!) Luckily, candy is sold all year long, so my husband was able to score a couple of bags. Unfortunately, he didn’t get home before trick-or-treaters started knocking at our door, so, sadly, I had to turn some away, explaining we had no candy. Luckily, they didn’t egg our house! But I kept all the lights off until we had candy to give out. And, wow, we sure got a lot of trick-or treaters this year! We got trick-or-treaters of all ages, in fact. Some adults showed up costume-less asking for candy.

My husband took the kids and a friend trick-or-treating while I stayed behind to hand out the candy. I watched them heading off … into the rain. It was really pouring tonight. I was thankful for the rain, because we NEED it, but not so happy they were going out into it for trick-or-treating. Of course they returned home all soaking wet, but they had fun!

So despite the chaos of Halloween this year, we still managed to pull it off. 

I was so upset about the money situation because I know of people going ALL OUT on Halloween with decorations and costumes and everything, and we weren’t able to do that this year. We had to have Halloween on the cheap. But seeing all the pictures from friends and family who were able to throw money into celebrating Halloween and celebrating the day in all its glory got me so angry and upset that I was ready to abandon my Halloween fixation. I was ready to give up on Halloween. It’s like you have to be rich to have fun on Halloween! Ditto with horror, since that’s a part of Halloween.

But, later, I realized, you know, I love horror too much. I love Halloween too much. So what if I can't go all out on Halloween? Who says I have to? You don’t need to be rich in order to enjoy Halloween or even celebrate Halloween.

Screw that, anyway! I’m all about being frugal. And I love the whole DIY thing. And, on top of that, I’m not gonna give in to society trying to capitalize off of a holiday, like it always does! To enjoy Halloween, you don’t need to BUY EVERYTHING. You can’t put a price on Halloween. It should be enjoyed in its own way, no matter how rich or poor some people are.

So, yeah, I’m still gonna embrace Halloween like always. And I’ll indulge in horror, too. I don’t need to be rich to do that. And, anyway, despite the chaos of Halloween this year, we still had fun!