Opinion: Why I'm changing my mind about Halloween this year

Children trick or treating for Halloween. Photo / 123rf

OPINION:

After a lifelong dedication to ferociously hating Halloween, I'm hanging up my Halloween grinch boots (which, to be clear, are just my regular boots, because dressing up is stupid).

I'm changing my mind about Halloween, effective now-ish.

Instead, in this year of the devil that is 2020, I'm embracing Halloween in all its horrifying stupidity. I won't go as far as dressing up, but I also vow to break a lifelong tradition of pretending not to be home when the trick-or-treaters come knocking.

Covid made me do it. Actually, not just Covid. The entire dumpster fire that has been 2020 - a truly apocalyptical culmination of the tiny horrors that have been building up in the past few decades.

I have always hated Halloween but now that the world has turned into a rolling Groundhog Day of October 31, I figure I might as well embrace the fake horrors of the date, as escapism for the very real horrors of all the other days of the year.

Don't get me wrong, my reasons for hating Halloween (which I've previously ranted about at length) still stand. The fact that Halloween ultimately sucks is a hill I am prepared to die on.

But in this absolute hellscape of a year, people need any reprieve they can get. If that's taking chocolate from strangers while wearing ridiculous outfits, or decorating their houses with fake spiderwebs and failing to scare people, then go for it. Any excuse to escape reality because no Halloween party can ever compete with a very real worldwide pandemic separating us all, or climate change, murder hornets, or the rise of white supremacy or any of the other true horrors that plague our existence.

Brain-eating zombies are cute, compared to global pandemics. Photo / 123rf

(Sorry if you clicked on this hoping for a cheery read.)

There will always be plenty of reasons to hate Halloween. Kids running around in ridiculous costumes on a never-ending sugar high, ugly decorations, and the over-commercialisation of a holiday most people wouldn't even know how it started are just some of those reasons. But, ultimately, there is something that trumps all those reasons: more than ever, we need to let people enjoy things.

Fake witches and ghosts don't scare me any more. Brain-eating zombies are actually a bit cute, compared to devastating global pandemics. Halloween's scariest costumes have nothing on what's going on every other day of the year.

So here's to Halloween, and all other excuses to take our mind off the real world. 2020 is one giant trick and, honestly, we all deserve a treat.