Halloween

I love the holidays… all of them really. Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter… even Valentine’s Day.  In growing from a child to an adult the reasons behind why I enjoy these occasions have all shifted…. All but one… HALLOWEEN.

Christmas as a child meant a visit from Santa and presents. These days my feelings towards Christmas are far more nostalgic.  Listening to the choir sing, “O Holy Night” makes my eyes fill up and all I really want to find under the Christmas tree in the morning is my family.  Valentine’s Day used to signify a celebration of friendship with my entire class. I would happily select my card theme each year and with the pure abandonment of a child who doesn’t see a thing wrong with the world, sign every single card with “ Love”. Regardless of its gimmicky nature, I still do love Valentine’s Day. Now it’s an excuse to make a delicious home-cooked meal with my husband and eat far too much chocolate.

Halloween, however, hasn’t changed for me one bit. I was never the type of girl to want to dress up as anything I could ever possibly grow up to be. The children dressed up as brides, doctors, firefighters, policemen….. utterly confused me. Why wear a uniform you could very well spend the rest of your life wearing!? For me, Halloween was and is still a chance to dress up as something I don’t stand a chance at being. Despite my own conviction that if Prince Harry were to meet me he’d fall madly in love with me, I did always assume that dressing up as a princess would be the closest I’d ever come to that dream. I want my chance to be a kitten… a mermaid…a Barbie doll… a Greek goddess…Princess Leia. Lord knows I’m not magically going to wake up as one of these things tomorrow… but once a year all that changes!  We get to decide what or who we want to be, and not a soul can tell us otherwise.