Glad It's Over

I've never been a big fan of Halloween. Oh, I liked it when I was the one running around getting the candy (and I don't mean traipsing to Target to buy seventeen bags of Kit-Kats) but since those days are long gone, it's not a holiday I even remotely look forward to.

I think it has something to do with my general dislike of anything that scares me. Unlike much of America, you will never catch me watching Scream (1, 2, or however many they ended up making) or any episode of The Walking Dead.  I will not set foot in a haunted house (you would not believe how long it took my family to convince me that nothing bad would happen to me on The Haunted Mansion ride in Disney World) or read a Stephen King novel. The way I see it, life is scary enough on a day-to-day basis. I don't need anything else to ramp up the excitement.  Just give me a DVD collection of Seinfeld  or Everybody Loves Raymond and let me laugh while you check out what those crazy zombies are doing over on AMC.

Halloween did have its merits when my kids were little. I loved seeing their excitement as they put their costumes on every year. I even enjoyed making a few of them. What I didn't love was the pressure to come up with something amazing every October and haggling over how much sugar they could consume before I hid their pillow cases full of loot. I also didn't appreciate having to eat all those leftover M&Ms and 3 Musketeers bars after the last Trick-or-Treaters were gone. (I know, I know, I could have bought candy I didn't like but somehow I could never bring myself to do something so rational.)

So, I'm glad it's over. The ghosts and goblins have vanished. The bags of fun-sized Snickers are now on clearance and the pumpkins have all been smashed. I don't have to think about any of it for 364 more days. But next year is going to be different and I just may end up looking forward to October 31. My first grandchild is going to be old enough to dress up like Elmo or Buzz Lightyear or Batman. Or he may fit into the penguin costume his mom bought on clearance today.

As long as she doesn't put that Scream mask on him, I should be okay.