Anybody else hate Halloween?

I hate haters

I don't mind Halloween. I don't go nuts, I don't stress out over costumes, I just kinda go with the flow. I'm going to be a newsie. Easy to do costume for a SF member.

Connemara,
You have such rich threads and insight, but on this one brother, let's step back!
Come on - get a good costume - something really original and throw back a few.

Is this what you meant?

I'm not a fran either. My last Halloween costume, several years ago, was the Brad Pitt character in Fight Club. I thought it was pretty good, but no one got it. I was so emotionally scarred that I haven't dressed up since.

I don't get adults who are "in to" Halloween.

It is an excuse for women to dress like total sluts though and of that I approve.

In fact I will be going to a few costume parties this year... But I still harumph.

Personally i'm not that fussed about halloween or people celebrating it. Its fun when your a kid but thats about it.

Not that bothered by halloween but i do buy candy for any kids that knock on my door. It should be just a kids holiday really.

I dislike Halloween. I dislike costuming as well. What I particularly dislike, though, is that the vigil one of the holiest days in the Christian year, the Feast of All Saints, has been turned into a festival of the grotesque, macabre and slutty. (Not that I have too much against "slutty.") Traditional Halloween stuff--black cats, pumpkins, old witches, etc.--is kind of cute, but some neighborhood displays are just grotesque and repulsive--dismembered bodies, rotting cadavers, that kind of thing. Giving candy to the trick-or-treaters is sort of fun, but I usually end up with a lot candy I don't want. I shun most candy.

Old man alert!

In Dec, Jan will be hatin' on Christmas, or at least the bastardized consumer holiday that has become of the celebration of the birth of Christ. Oh lawd ha' mercy.

I have never been a fan of Halloween.

Then I must be old too.

I think Jan and I may be the only resident Anglicans in all of SF. I'd say we're an easy going lot who enjoy drinking and smoking as much as the next heathen but also take umbrage when things we consider sacred or important are co-opted by others who profane or dilute their meaning. As Americans it's, of course, one's right to exercise their freedom in this way, but as a Christian I'm not the biggest fan of how holy days have been conflated with what amounts to secular consumerism and/or debauchery. I can't help but think of the cleansing of the Temple where Jesus literally creates a whip to drive the money-changers out of the temple courts. It's the only incident in all of Scripture where Jesus actually employs physical violence.

That said, I don't mind the more innocent and innocuous aspects of the Halloween of yesteryear. Give me some "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", kids trick-or-treating and pumpkin carving (and the roasted pumpkin seeds that go with it) and I'm fine with it being an American cultural tradition based primarily on nostalgia. It's the ramping up of the aforementioned grotesqueries (and I'm not just talking about the inflatable lawn decorations) in the past 20 years though that I have little patience for, including grown women with no sense of propriety dressing in whatever the slutty costume du jour is for that year. Yes, I enjoy leering at scantily clad women as much as the next sinner, but there's just something inherently wrong about taking a tradition that has been and should primarily be for children and either sexualizing it or turning it into the next direct to DVD slasher movie.

/grumpy old man rant

I just treat it like any other costume party; be it on "Halloween" or not.

I've never celebrated "All Saints Day" and don't intend to start. I'm no catholic, nor really even a christian. I suppose I have my own way of viewing religion and spirituality outside the context of most established religions. Therefore dressing up for fun, drinks, and a good time with women is no issue for me.

I can definitely see how bb and JLib would take offense. Just be glad for your own eyes and memory that it's not me wearing the skimpy outfits!

I dunno. Alex Trebek looks like he'd cut a pretty nice figure in a French maid outfit.

What do you get when you take the inside out of a hot dog?

A hollow wiener!


It seems like it's the most enthusiastically celebrated "holiday" in LA. Large sections of streets are sectioned off for people to walk around and buy bad food from food trucks. Stages are built for really horrible rap acts to perform - the PA systems are cranked up so much that all you hear is indecipherable distortion laden...yuckiness.

The only things I don't like about Halloween is when people make it into a malicious holiday, instead of something fun for children and adults alike.