If Halloween is a blazing orange phoenix, then November 1st is the tiny featherless bird sitting in its ashes. It’s disappointing, and you can’t help but wish you could spend a little more time with the phoenix. But all things must end, whether you like it or not. Luckily, there a few simple things you can do to make that transition a little easier.
1.Get rid of your pumpkins
You spent three hours picking out the perfect pumpkin, two hours carving it, and one hour getting the perfect shot for Instagram. You spent a lot of time on that pumpkin, and you were pretty proud, but November is here and it’s rotting on your doorstep. It’s time for it to go.
However, that doesn’t mean you have to throw it in the trash. There are plenty of things you can do with an old pumpkin. You could roast the seeds for a delicious snack. For a more substantial meal, you could make pumpkin gut bread or pumpkin lasagna. And if you’re not a fan of the taste of pumpkin, you could always turn it into a bird feeder or planter. Hell, you could even drop it off a high location and film the explosion in slow motion. As long as you clean up afterwards, anything is fair game.
2.Switch out your decorations
You don’t want to be that person who still has paper bats taped to the wall halfway through December. Taking down decorations can make your room look boring or bleak, so you need to be ready to put up some fresh decorations right away. You could replace the pumpkin in the center of that wreath of leaves with a gourd and be ready for Thanksgiving. You could repurpose those spider webs into snow in preparation for the winter holidays. And if you went to a haunted house or a scary movie, you could hang up your old tickets on your corkboard or find a cool way to display them. If you’re too lazy to do anything that fancy, at least put some hand turkeys on the wall next to your paper bats. It’s November now, and your room should reflect that.
3.Find a new TV show to binge watch
You watched all of American Horror Story and Stranger Things in one long binge session. You emerge from your blanket cocoon, disoriented and unsure of where you are. Squinting at the sky, you wonder how long it’s been since you’ve seen sunlight—12 hours? Three days? A week?
We get it; we’ve all been there. Binge watching is a time-honored tradition, and Halloween television shows have a way of sucking you in. But now that you’ve finished them all, you are left with a Netflix-shaped hole in your chest. Whatever shall you do?
Get back into that blanket cocoon, because the answer is “find a new TV show to watch.” Even if you’ve exhausted all of the Halloween-themed options, there are plenty of great shows on Netflix ready to be viewed. If you want to keep with the spooky theme, check out A Series of Unfortunate Events and Black Mirror. If you want something funny, try The Good Place or Arrested Development. If you prefer animated TV shows with adult themes, then Archer or Bojack Horseman might be for you. And if you don’t know what you want to watch, maybe you should check out American Vandal, a mockumentary about penis graffiti that is equal parts hilarious and heartfelt.
4.Get to work on your candy
If you went trick or treating, you should now have a pillowcase full of mini candies hidden under your bed. Looking at it reminds you of how fun Halloween was, and you might feel the urge to eat your sorrows away. Instead of giving into those temptations, here are a couple things you could do instead.
First, you could host a candy trade. Invite over all your friends and tell them to bring their own trick-or-treating loot. Sit down, spread all your candy out on the floor, and start trading. Try to keep the negotiations fun and friendly, but if someone tries to trade you a yellow starburst in exchange for a Reese’s cup, you are totally justified in throwing a king sized candy bar at their head.
If you’re more into charity than commerce, then bring your candy to a club meeting or just give it away to your friends. If you want to make them earn it, then you could count it out, put it in a glass jar, and start accepting guesses! The friend who has closest guess gets your loot, and also maybe your respect.
And if you didn’t go trick or treating, that’s fine—now is the perfect time to take advantage of the post-Halloween candy sales. You could still do anything listed above, or you could buy a huge bag of your favorite candy and hoard it. Either choice is good, and either one will help get you through those post-Halloween blues.
5.Start counting down to the next Halloween
No matter what tips and tricks you do, you’re going to miss Halloween a little bit. When else is it acceptable to dress up as a horrifying monster or decorate your room with skulls or pretend to like candy corn? There’s no time quite like Halloween, and it’s going to be hard to say goodbye. That’s okay.
The important thing to remember is that it isn’t a “goodbye,” it’s a “see you later”; Halloween will be back again next year. So my advice is to bust out your calendar, flip to next October, and circle Halloween with your most obnoxious orange glitter pen. It’s only 365 days to go.