Wednesday, November 01, 2006

More like Swalloween!

Megan attacked my decision of staying in last night and not dressing up for Halloween. She did so indirectly, actually via comment on Martha's blog (which will now be known as Memoirs of a Geisha because I think I'm being cute). Because I take even indirect asides at my character as personal attacks (and this is because I have low self-esteem, and it all flows from my low birth weight or something) I felt obligated to present my waning interest in Halloween.

Our generation is destroying Halloween. We are turning a children's holiday into a global dance party/drunkfest. Not withstanding the present state of women's costumes, my problem with this is simple. Children have so few days of the year that are truly for them as it is that us taking one away should be considered heartless. As it stands, children really only have Christmas that is just theirs. Adults (as in our generation) have New Year's, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's Day, and every major sporting event (professional included but especially college) as days that we can call our days for fun. This is in addition to the fact that we don't need excuses to party.

Our generation has fresh memories of what it was like to be children and excited for Halloween. I can only imagine that children now will grow up with memories of Halloween being the night the entire hockey team drove into the river. Granted, I think the fact that children now must Trick or Treat during the daytime between designated hours is doing more to ruin the holiday than scores of boisterous twenty-somethings could, I still think we need to do our part to return this holiday to its rightful owner.

I don't look down on those who celebrate. I don't expect anyone to change their life because of something I said. I just want you to think.

Just so I credit the person who originally got me thinking this way, B from P-Boi is the first person I've heard make this argument.

To be honest, it really doesn't bother me as much as I let on. I just saw a lot of the things I don't like about this holiday this year and very little about what makes it actually fun.

Before anyone asks, I did dress up for my Halloween Ultimate tourney. I don't think this makes me a hypocrite as a) the tourney wasn't made for kids b) it took place on Saturday during the day and 3) shut up.

6 comments:

TaylorStreet said...

Amen. It's a nice holiday, but give the kids something of their own.
I don't say it often, but. . ."Caleb's right!"

marthamatters said...

I don't say it enough, but..."Caleb is not right (on some accounts)." First of all, many a costume party is ruined by the obscene costumes, so I agree on that account. But not everyone does that. And jello shots are a grown-up's halloween candy. So if you're not into it, cool. Don't get down on it though. I look forward to seeing how creative we twenty-somethings can be with our costumes. And I totally stayed home on Halloween to give out trick or treat candy to the miniature pirates and witches that stopped by my place. I gave them their props. And by the way, parents are vicariously dressing up for Halloween when they dress their kids up anyway. I saw a four year old dressed up as Harpo Marx. It was awesome.

Caleb said...

It's important to keep the end in mind. I'm really not that bothered by it and it isn't as much of an issue since kids can't go out at night anymore anyway. I agree creativity goes a long way but I saw little to none of that this year to remind me.

I didn't even give out candy so Martha is officially better than me.

marthamatters said...

At least you realize the fact.

marthamatters said...

And it's "better than I." I'm just keeping you on your grammatical feet.

Martin K. said...

Have you ever seen the Judy Garland musical "Meet me in St. Louis?" (sorry boys, he's married) The movie on the whole was not that great, but there is a sequence that takes place on Halloween that really opened my eyes to what the holliday used to be and how American's intense fear of each other has ruined any sense of comradarie that existed on Oct 31. Halloween was supposed to be a time where we threw caution to the wind, put away pleasantries, and tried to scare the crap out of people just for fun. Now we're so scared of each other all the time Halloween is strictly regulated begging and an excuse to show eithre your wits or your tits.