I Miss Halloween.

I love this thing!

Before you friends and neighbors take up your pens and fill out a petition to get me to take down my glowing orange scary spider web from Halloween, I need to explain something.
All my life, as far back as I can remember, Halloween has been the only ‘holiday’ that really makes complete sense to me. We get to dress up, if we want, and no one looks at us funny. We get to give over our usual fears and we can embrace those things that typically scare us stiff. More than these, however, we get to give up pretending that we don't’ believe in monsters for one night, and accept their permanent place in our society.
Werewolves, vampires, mummies, devils, zombies and scary clowns, just to name a few, ramble to streets for one evening and no one panics. It is one of those things that I wish was acceptable all year long.
The first Halloween costume that I ever remember was something constructed almost entirely by my mother. The long red arrow-pointed tail was stuffed with pillow fluff. The horns too, and other than the mask and three pronged pitchfork, I was a handmade Devil. The following year, my step dad took and old box and some brown paper bags and made a ‘big bad wolf’ helmet mask for me. I truly believe that this was when I became a Monster Fan.
Tramping down the streets our tiny little country town each Autumn, I began to understand, of only faintly, humanity’s obsession with ‘the things that go bump in the night.’ Since then, every year, whether I actually dress up, or if I only don black from head to toe, I’m experiencing a kind of Monster Exhilaration, for which there is no pill.
Sadly, less than a month after the Great Halloween Celebrations have ceased, it’s time to talk Turkey, and Santa has already begun to stick his long white beard into the season. And while I love Thanksgiving and Christmas, love the dying of the year, and love any excuse to get together with family to eat yummy food, I still feel a pang of remorse at the sad ending of Halloween.
Personally, Halloween never ends, and I celebrate Monsters in all their gory glory all year long on my Facebook Page Monster Serial.
So, for those of you who are annoyed at my apparent inability to remove my lovely glowing scary spider web, please be patient. The weekend approaches, and I’ll be taking it down then. But give me the benefit of the doubt. I hate to let go of Monster Season and Halloween. It is, after all, my favorite time of the year.