For most teenagers, Halloween shifts over the years from a night of bartering candy with friends into a hectic and uncoordinated series of jumps between parties in the dark. Many of us feel too old to trick-or-treat and too old to dress up at school, but what if it didn’t have to be that way? What if we could keep the spirit of the holiday alive as we approach adulthood?
Honestly, us seniors have become too old to trick-or-treat. But partying isn’t a great answer to that. If that’s your kind of fun, good for you, but personally I find it hard to enjoy a crowd deafened by music where everyone seems to be looking for a ride home. When I wake up one morning regretting the night before, that doesn’t make me want to do the same thing again.
As someone who has dressed up for Halloween at school for two years in a row, I think everyone should. As a sophomore, I dressed up as Walter White with a bald cap and his clothes, each piece sourced separately rather than bought in a bundle. When I came to school, people stared at me because most people don’t commit to a costume like I did. But by the end of the day, I felt comfortable and primed for the night. The next year I dressed as Where’s Waldo and had the same experience, but still most people didn’t dress up. Ideally, our school should look like the movies, where a sea of interests and characters cover the campus.
I think most people believe it’s not cool to wear your costume in the light of day, but that’s where it can really shine. Dressing up, even if it’s simple, is better than nothing. You can still put on a costume if your primary one isn’t school appropriate, whether too revealing or dangerous, or if it takes too much effort to put on in the morning. I simply believe that walking into school seeing everyone dressed up in some way would make Halloween more memorable.
People should be more creative with their outfits too. Be a character you actually like, not just some copy-paste construction worker or cat. And wearing something purely to attract others or look cool is way worse than being a character no one knows. Halloween shouldn’t be about the opinions of others. It’s meant for self-expression, a day where no one is judged because everyone looks a bit strange. That’s what makes it fun.
On the topic of costumes, you could make your own. Thrifting a costume and sewing together the pieces, or doing so with friends and making each other’s outfits could make a stressful and often procrastinated activity into a creative or social one. By making a unique costume, it would also look less cheap and basic even if it’s similar to a premade one. And by buying it second hand, you can make a dent in the 35 million costumes that are thrown away every year.
There are still plenty more activities that avoid huge-scale partying, like going to a pumpkin patch and finding some to carve, or seeing scare actors at Universal or Knott’s Scary Farm. These are obviously made better with friends, but one shouldn’t be afraid to go alone either.
Even if you do like consuming certain substances while dressed up like an angel, or having to find a friend to pick you up from the Jamie Foxx party, taking part in these fun Halloween activities as well could help bring back some Halloween spirit to our mostly dead city and school. You might just have more fun doing that than being at some old party.
Leave a Reply