Whether it be the riveting spooky skulls placed outside the neighborhood curbs for blocks and blocks ahead or the jaw-dropped horror movie ads played constantly before YouTube videos, the horrors of Halloween – at least for me – have never beat the happiness of Christmas.
I’m just not a Halloween girl. I am ambivalent towards it.
I don’t hate Halloween; I simply don’t love Halloween as much as Christmas.
I don’t love candy corn as much as I love holiday music and eggnog. I don’t love Halloween buckets as much as I love red Christmas stockings.
Midterm season is in full swing, and the fact that Halloween falls on a Wednesday this year doesn’t make this fact anymore pleasant. The time of pumpkin-spiced lattes and joyous Christmas festivities and holiday galore has already begun. Black Friday sales advertisements swallow my Amazon account homepage and businesses are in full strategic-thinking mode to procure as much profit as they could as the end of 2018 nears. It’s mid-October, and the urge to start binge-watching dozens of Halloween movies on Hallmark channel and on Netflix/Hulu, while singing Michael Jackson’s Thriller silently in the shower (yes, it is possible) is becoming stronger with each passing day. Of course, one may compare the merriment of this event to other oncoming occasions, such as Thanksgiving or New Year.
I, personally, am a fan of Christmas, for a variety of personal and public reasons, but I’ll stick to only a few here for purposes of brevity. I always prefer the overall holiday vibe, peppermint candy canes, snowmen sculptures, stocking stuffers, and jingle bell-ness of the season than the scary spookiness of Halloween.
If this fits the context any better, I’m the girl who gets nightmares for months after watching horror movie clips and trailers (not the entire movie). I watched a portion of the movie, Orphan, about four years ago, and I still remember details from the film quite vividly – I wish I could unsee and un-remember these particulars, but I. Just. Can’t.
Read on for a few reasons why the day of the birth of Jesus Christ is better than All Hallows’ Day of remembering the dead – at least in my personal perspective!
1. No Eerie Stuff
This may come as a major confession to some, but I’m ready to take the leap here: I dislike horror or any genre/aspect that has anything remotely to do with horror. The fear and fright of scary Halloween themes make me stop sleeping for days – even weeks – on end, and I’m not ready to give up on any more beauty-sleep than I already have in my college career. People have already pointed out that I “look tired” and that has me relentlessly stressed. I’m just not part of the “I love horror” party, which is why I wimp out of any occasion that involves blood, gore, or even creepy music. The first horror movie I ever watched was The Headless Horseman, and the simplicity of horror within this movie gave me insomnia for at least six nights – the only dose of insomnia I don’t regret. The second horror movie I ever accidentally watched was The Haunted House, which spooked me out for over a week – the dark circles did not suit me, to say the least. The point is, I regretted watching both movies, as well as the trailer for the Orphan movie. It scares me, and I’d rather be declared a cheesy “scaredy cat” or a “pookie girl” (not sure why being called a “girl” should ever be considered an insult, but changing this norm will take generations) than a frightened-to-the-point-of-death college sophomore willing to trail through horror movies and Halloween-themed elements without batting an eye. Christmas, however, welcomes my heart from all ends. The entire atmosphere and social milieu of the situation invite me in, from the lights to the dreadful eggnog to the catchy music. There is absolutely no sinister stuff involved, as in Halloween, and Christmas actually automatically puts a smile on my lips – easily and effectively.
2. The Shrill Music
The horror movies turn me off. Unlike many students of today’s generation, who associate Halloween with their introduction to the Michael Myers character, I associate Halloween with the very first horror movie I ever watched – and the only one I ever loved, The Headless Horseman. There was zero blood, zero gore, zero bones and scarecrows…and zero heads, but a myriad of cliches, that, at the time, I didn’t recognize as cliches in the first place. I love that movie and always will. On the other hand, I get goosebumps every time I remember my memories of accidentally watching the first movie in the Haunted House series (the one with a young Chloë Grace Moretz and an elderly-fied Ryan Reynolds). Pro tip: watching horror movies in the early hours of the morning beyond midnight is – and never will be – as enjoyable as it sounds. It simply isn’t a good idea.
The Christmas-themed songs irk many, but they definitely don’t vex me; the holiday music is so addictive to my eardrums, that you could often catch me favoriting it in my Spotify playlist. While this may horrify some, I’ll admit that I absolutely love listening to such cliched songs as Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, Justin Bieber’s Mistletoe, especially his version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Bing Crosby’s Walking in a Winter Wonderland definitely tops the charts for my musical tastes every Christmas season as well. During Christmas, the music that gets played in shopping malls, events, and almost every commercial of the Hallmark channel, amuses me and puts me in the best possible mood. It also helped me focus a little during the hectic craze of Finals week. However, for Halloween, I barely have a few songs I remember or even like to point out to the average person; Michael Jackson’s Thriller comes to mind, but that’s about it. It may be because I live in a cave – especially during Halloween – but the musical types and rhythms that generally characterize Halloween simply don’t appeal to my non-eclectic tastes. I don’t exactly prefer Christmas carols over Halloween jams, but generally speaking, I wouldn’t mind the former over the latter if I were confined to a musical marathon between the two. Of course, I also recognize how many students adored Season 2 of Stranger Things or the new reboot of Charmed on Netflix during Halloween, but Christmas, I argue, could be just as adorable.
3. It’s Before Finals, Not After
Perhaps the most important reason out of all my reasons for disliking Halloween is the fact that Christmas is usually never plagued with the academic stress/workload that generally occurs during Halloween. Halloween marks the end of October and the beginning of November, meaning that assignments are still being assigned and midterm season may just be ending – or still ongoing. Either way, Halloween simply doesn’t carry the same positivity and academic relief as Christmas does, when final exams, end-of-semester projects / papers / research / problem sets, and club memberships are all over. My mind is so much freer during Christmas than it is during Halloween and of course, this is an inherent fact; no development could ever change how these two timelines have been established or characterized. It’s simply the way things are, and it’s simply a reason why I will always prefer the leisurely holiday thrills of Christmas over the school-still-in-session vibes of Halloween: I’m not left worrying about work and studying when the Christmas carols are being sung, and that’s a huge game-changer for me in the debate of Christmas vs. Halloween.
4. It’s Midweek in the Middle of Midterms
Another reason that is similar to Reason 3 above is that Christmas is irrevocably closer to the New Year than Halloween will ever be, meaning that Christmas is automatically a celebration of not one but two separate occasions situated closely together in time, while Halloween is simply a one day annual event that quickly diminishes within the span of those twenty-four hours. With two of my family members’ birthdays falling back-to-back on Halloween, I’m also quite stressed out about fulfilling the wishes of both people, which dulls my Halloween spirits as well. Christmas, the holiday season, and the entire New Year theme all come together to one exciting amalgamation in December, which amplifies the general excitement, engagement and happiness of the time to unprecedented levels. It simply seems that Christmas and its cheerful merriment last much longer than Halloween and its pumpkin-patch elements ever will. Having a new year to celebrate right after the wonderful delights of Christmas brings a whole new level of prosperity on its own (even if those New Year resolutions never get fulfilled in their existence).
5. Gingerbread Houses Trump the Candy Corn
Here comes the ultimate food debate: who do our mighty tastebuds prefer best?
In my opinion, multi-colored candy canes and colorful, delicious gingerbread houses trump all! They trump the candy corn and endless chocolates for Halloween. They trump the sweets that are often exclusively targeted at children during Halloween (as opposed to the more mature target audience that universally accepts all people of all ages during Christmas time). Also, I may be heavily biased here: the gingerbread houses are simply too cute and adorable to ignore; whenever I see a gingerbread man, or cookies, or anything flavored with gingerbread, I melt instantly and remember the Shrek movie series/characters. The candy corn has never appealed to me as much as the gingerbread houses, kits, decor, and cream has: the entire idea of building an edible house simply entices all my five senses (even the sixth sense, if you believe in intuition). While I hopelessly love the sweets of Halloween as a faithful chocoholic, the variety of scrumptious holiday cookies – some snowman-shaped – and lustrous shades of gingerbread houses make my mouth water more than the delicacies of Halloween. I may not be a fan of the eggnog of Christmas, but I definitely prefer the idea of building gingerbread houses more so than constructing and redefining the architecture of pumpkins. Carving pumpkins will never be nearly as exciting for me as making, decorating, and consuming gingerbread houses will. Oh, and the craze I embody for gingerbread men and cookies may or may not stem from the Shrek movies as well.
6. Christmas Trees and Holly vs. Scarecrows and Ghosts
If you’ve seen the hilarious movie, Why Him?, you’ll know that Americans give it their all when it comes to selecting the best and brightest Christmas trees. From the car commercials to the holiday shopping ads to the Christmas tree twinkle lights/actual tree advertisements inside Walmart, Christmas screams high spirits and fun (as well as business profit) nearly everywhere. The gaiety and liveliness of the entire season trumps the relative ‘slowness’ of Halloween, and that may partially be because of the timing. The primary point to take-away is, the Christmas tree, the decorations – including the glowing star at the top – as well as the Santa Claus mythical stories told ubiquitously to children, all make the occasion so much more whimsical than it would have actually been. It is this same sense of ethereality that appeals to me in Christmas, and since this exuberance lacks during Halloween, I prefer the twinkly lights and Christmas stockings/stuffers/hot chocolate to the ghostly TPed houses of Halloween (there’s a Parks and Recreation episode, Season 2, Episode 7, featuring Greg Pikitis – an extremely interesting teen character worth exploring; I highly recommend you watch it). The decorations vary in color, since the scope for diversity of ornaments is much more flexible in Christmas than it is during the pumpkin/scarecrow-laden themes of Halloween.
All in all, the Christmas tree, the Santa Claus events, the red and golden (among other colors) decor, the culture of gift-giving, the statues, the commemorative figures, the bokeh lighting, the exceptionally heightened economic activity (which is shared by Halloween as well and begins as early as early December) and the reindeer-themed cards of Christmas all make me love Christmas far more than Halloween.
However, my gorgeous collegiettes, don’t let me be the one to ruin your Halloween fantasies this year. Enjoy your Wednesday and the following weekend to make the most of this spooky set-up that only comes once every year. Don’t let one voice stop you from doing what makes you happy – ever.
Bask in the horrors of Halloween, decorate those pumpkins with all the creativity you’ve got, and order that Halloween costume from Amazon ASAP. You’ve got a night to scare.
Take your fellow collegiettes along with you for trick-or-treating, or stay in and chill with Netflix if you wish.
Till then, slay the day, ladies! You deserve to.