You like Halloween why, exactly?

A column published the week after Halloween several years ago. Got some great -- agreeing with me, that's always the best -- feedback, too.

I confess. I had another column already to go, polished and shiny. But very recents events have forced me to come out of the closet. I need to come clean and admit I am one of “them.” It is high time -- well, the perfect time, really -- to admit that I am a full-fledged, flaming, card-carrying Halloween Hater.

Boy, what a stupid holiday. And it is not even a real holiday. Did anyone get the day off? Well, I mean anyone besides those guys and gals who wandered around their respective worksites last Thursday in silly get-ups forcing everyone around them to take notice of their delight at looking like Harry Potter or a mummy or Feidel Castro. I grow so weary of forcing a smile until my face hurts at these folks that wander into my office on Halloween and stand there waiting for you to guess who it is. Take a Dum-dum and leave, please. I read where 35 percent of all costumes are for adults, not kids. Get a life, folks.

I guess it is more of a celebration than a holiday. But celebrate what? Witches, witchcraft? Ghosts, dying, decomposition? Devils, Lucifer? I never have quite caught the vision of this alter-ego insanity.

Not that others haven’t mind you. Halloween is now our second-most-decorated “holiday” in the United States. One CNN report says $765 million is spent annually on Halloween decorations. They say that $45 per household is average for Halloween preparations and activities.
Boy, I hope you spent my $45 well, because I didn’t touch it.

There are some homes in my neighborhood that are lighted up like Christmas with orangish lights and spotlights on ghosts hanging in trees ad naseum. And for what? To work their kids into a fever pitch about being greedy?

See, I told you I was a Halloween Hater. And I think I am not alone. There’s more than one insightful Grinch regarding Oct. 31, I’m sure.

I have grown weary of kids taller than I am walking around with a pillowcase scamming for candy bars. I have grown weary of little kids sticking their hands in my dish of Tootsie Rolls like Curious George in the coconut. I have grown weary of parents saying they hope nothing “happens to their house” if they run out of candy. I have grown weary of teens and young adults being urged to dress up and be quasi-anonymous -- all in the name of Halloween fun -- so that they feel comfortable doing things that they normally wouldn’t dream of doing. I’ve grown weary of Halloween being an excuse for bad behavior.

I have grown weary of hearing local police indicate that more alcohol arrests are made on Halloween (give or take a day or two, depending on the exact time of the big Halloween bashes, especially on campuses) than on any other night besides New Years Eve.

Luckily I married a fellow Halloween Hater, so we have worked on this together. We have had Halloweens where we tried to turn the event into a service project -- you know, like our children taking decorated sugar cookies to the old folk’s home and “trick or treating” there. Or traveling a couple of hours to grandma’s house and surprising her ... and it really was a pleasant surprise all around. This year, my daughter went a day early and “trick or treated” around the neighborhood for a charity.

We were known in our last home as the goofy house that gave goofy treats for Halloween. For several years we gave little boxes of raisins instead of candy (you get some interesting responses from from little devils at the door with those, I assure you.) For several more years, we gave nickels. They opened their bags, we dropped a nickel in it. We have given coupons a number of times, for something besides candy. And we always, always trade out the sack of goodies from our kids and give them a present instead. “Yes, that bag of chocolate, artificial coloring and corn syrup is nice, sweetheart, but give it to daddy and get this present instead! It’ll be kind of like Christmas!”

In case you can’t tell, my wife has a “thing” about candy. And for good reason. Anyone who doesn’t buy into that “bad food coloring/Red dye No. 5 stuff” has never met my children. Also, most kids get constipated for days after Halloween ... after you pull them down off the ceiling. Take note, will you, honest note.

So I ask, again, why? Halloween celebrates all the wrong things, it breeds all the wrong traits, it provides all the wrong excuses and thinking.

So don’t look for me at your door next year. I’ll have something else to do on the last day of the month next October. It’s called home teaching.