Halloween Spirits

I am truly feeling the Spirit of Halloween this year. I generally don't get into holidays very much because I am cheap and a chronic procrastinator. Christmas is expensive and massively commercialized, Valentines is a holiday that brings daters together and drives marriages apart. By the time you are married for 10 or some-odd years you expect your spouse to know precisely what will melt your heart and their lame-ass gifts just don't cut it anymore. Easter is fine, it is about due time to have a holiday after six months of winter. The earth is frozen and the snow has browned and Summer feels too far away to really look forward to. Independance day USED to be cool, until we moved out of Utah to a state that cares whether it catches on fire or not. In Utah we had a plethora of fireworks that we bought in front of the grocery store. Here, it is impossible to buy fireworks. I felt giddy when my neighbor produced a sparkler this year. Total NY contraband. I don't remember any of the other holidays. Oh, Thanksgiving, that's right. Most people LOVE thanksgiving. Clearly they are the recipients of the food and not the ones slaving over a stove, oven, refrigerator, praying to GOD that the food turns out edible, the kids don't stain the carpet and that Uncle Jack doesn't make any racist comments to cousin betty's new boyfriend. There is way to much work and way too many variables to make Thanksgiving worthwile, and I refuse to put that much time and money into a meal that will most likely taste repulsive and cause contention among those in attendance. Besides, noone appreciates how much time you spent preparing the food anyway, they feel like their green bean casserole was enough to compensate for the $150 worth of food that has been prepared for them. Now Halloween is my kind of holiday. We get to pretend to be something we are not for one day. As an adult you don't HAVE to dress up. I generally forget to buy a costume and say that I'm being a bitch, or a desperate housewife for Halloween. No costume necessary. Childrens costumes are a breeze. Princess crap for the girls, and the uniform from your child's most recent sport for your boys. Plus a pair of thermals and a parka. Noone really sees your kids costume when they are trick or treating here anyway. Its frigid. Whether it is snowing, or sleeting, or clear as a bell, you can count on cold. After your kids are wardrobed appropriately they leave with their dad for two full hours and leave you in peace. Maybe a total of 20 trick or treaters stop in. I get to sit in peace until the quiet feels so unnatural I turn on some halloween music to help remind me it is still a holiday. Two hours later I get rewarded for my alone time with three bags of candy, and not the three musketeers garbage like I give, but really tasty stuff. It is truly divine. Now some of you hard-core halloweeners are probably horrified at my take on Halloween. To you I apologize (but only because I still want you for friends) I grew up in an incredibly festive home. My parents overdid every holiday; six christmas trees, haunted house for halloween, my dad is the best halloween makeup artist you have ever seen. For fun he used to put a giant gash in my face (not on Halloween) and have me stop off at gas stations and pretend like I needed some ice and a bandaid. I never had one person question the authenticity of the wound. It was awesome. I lack the mad artistic skills and morbid thinking of my father and I don't have the orginizational skills and creativity of my mother so I would never be able to give my children the fantastical holidays I had when I was a child. I justify may holiday lackadasical attitude by saying that we totally celebrated holidays when I was a kid and I still turned out pretty jacked, so maybe I am doing my children a favor...I am already looking forward to next Halloween.