Don’t get me wrong, I love the process of getting ready with my friends, putting on fun makeup and getting all dressed up. Halloween does come with stressful times that I’m not sure is worth it. At least for me, I feel like I need to order everything I need for Halloween at least two weeks before. This also means a month before Halloween is when you have to decide what you want to be.
Halloween, when I was younger, used to be a costume only for one night. Everyone in my neighborhood would walk around together going door to door, just to get some candy. I would sit on my front porch and watch my dad put the spider webs on our bushes. Every kid would dump out all their candy in our basement and we would trade our candy for hours. I didn’t have to worry about if I had plans, how I should do my makeup or if I had enough money to actually buy what I wanted to wear.
Now it feels like a month-long commitment with at least four costumes, which doesn’t help my bank account at all. I have to plan what outfit I want to wear on which day because obviously you have to wear your best outfit the night you want to look the best or when you have the best plans. It also doesn’t help when there’s so much pressure on the weekend to find or have the best plans or plans at all.
I love the Halloween decorations, the pumpkin spice lattes that come out everywhere and all the spooky movies you can watch during the Halloween season. I love seeing everyone else’s costumes and how creative some people can be with theirs. I love going on TikTok and seeing people dress up as funny memes on TikTok like Paint Grandpa or Heidi Klum having a 10-peacock-person as her Halloween costume.
However, I don’t think I’m creative enough to come up with some niche Halloween costume that makes me as excited as some people are for the season. Although I love everything about Halloween as a whole, the pressures of having at least four great costumes and great plans to go along with it, make it an overwhelming preparation and an underwhelming aftermath.