I BELIEVE IN HALLOWEEN

Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. Over the year, evangelists for other holidays have tried to out do me, tried to prove to me why I was wrong. "I mean, Christmas...just CHRISTMAS!" They will holler. But Halloween is not just a day where anyone can be anything, its a day where everyone comes out equal. Whether you've got a trust fund waiting for you, or you know the awkwardness of standing in line at school to receive your free lunch, Halloween is for you.

For me, holidays like Christmas and my birthday carry such weight. That weight inevitably turns into pressure and anxiety for me. The pressure of giving and receiving resulted in some intense sadness and anxiety throughout my childhood, of wishing for more. More to give others who always had something to hand to me, we would often give home made treats or even once our own movies taken from the home, and more to receive. Sick guilt would wash over me, and pours over me now, thinking of feeling that way in the first place. It isn't about that! Oh, but somehow it still is. It's a lot for a poor sap like me.

But Halloween. Halloween I can do. I can even excel at Halloween. A pumpkin costs 5 bucks. A thrift store costume is inevitably always cooler and more clever than store bought, especially when you have been raised by a mother who could pull a costume together in 10 minutes flat. Candy, by the huge pillow case sack full, is always just a trick-r-treat away.

So I will continue to carve jack-o-lanterns, and dream up costumes, and revel in handing over treats to the greedy little paws that visit us on the 31st. All of you Christmas and birthday loyalists can stop trying to convert me. I'm fine right here, with my labradoodle pumpkin and some incredibly hilarious family portraits.