Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates it! This is my favourite holiday of the year, so I’m thrilled to see October 31 come around again on the calendar.
In previous years, I’ve blogged about My Favourite Halloween Treats, Halloween Picture Books, and Halloween Things I’ve Never Done for Top Ten Tuesday’s Halloween Freebie post.
This time I’m going to talk about why I love this holiday so much, especially since I wasn’t allowed to celebrate it as a kid as I’ve mentioned before.
So what’s so fantastic about this holiday?
1. Presents Aren’t Needed
It’s a relief to celebrate without being expected to give or receive gifts. I have a lot of mixed feelings about that tradition.
2. Candy and Baked Goods
Halloween candy and baked goods are delicious. If I receive something I can’t eat for allergy reasons, there are a lot of other people who can eat it and who wouldn’t mind taking it home.
3. Free Expression
This is the only time of year when it’s socially acceptable for adults to dress in costumes (unless you’re going to a comic conference or something). I love having the freedom to be anyone I want for that night…even if, truth be told, most Halloween nights find me no longer dressing up at all.
4. You Can Eat Anything
I enjoy cooking, but I do not like the pressure that can come on other holidays like Thanksgiving or Christmas to follow a rigid menu and make all of the dishes the exact same way every time. There is no set menu for Halloween. You could eat pizza, samosas, Pad Thai, or a nice, big salad if you wish!
5. Halloween Music
Don’t tell anyone, but I start listening to Halloween playlists in September. I love jumping around from lighthearted kids’ songs to the season finale song of Supernatural to all sorts of other spooky music.
6. Autumn Is Gorgeous
I love walking through crunchy leaves in the park and seeing the brilliant red, yellow, orange, and occasionally purple leaves still clinging to their trees or bushes. Halloween is often pretty close to peak colour here in Toronto, so this is yet another reason why I love this holiday.
7. Ghost Stories
Whether I’m going on a ghost tour, reading a ghost story, or watching a paranormal film, I think it’s interesting to explore the spirits’ motives for haunting a particular location.
8. Carving Pumpkins
Am I good at it? Not really, but it’s still amusing. When else are you going to have permission to play with food? (Or potential food, rather).
9. Acknowledgement of Death
A friend of mine died in a car accident when we were in high school. One of the weirdest parts of that experience for me was how quickly people stopped talking about him. We were all grieving, and of course I respected everyone who found it too hard to discuss him or his accident. Halloween is a relief to me because it’s one time of year when more folks are willing to broach such topics and remember the dead. Yes, there is pain in those moments…but over time there can also be so much joy to be found in retelling funny or touching stories about those who are no longer with us.
10. Fear Is Fun In Small Doses When You’re Not Really In Danger
Wow, that was a wordy sentence! But, yeah, I do see the value in feeling a little fear from a spooky movie or ghost story when you know that it is 100% fiction. This is such a different feeling than being afraid of something or someone who could actually harm you.
They are so many books out there set during Christmas that I continue to be surprised by how much less common it is to find books set during Thanksgiving. Let’s see how many of them I can find!
Here are some of the many reasons why I am thankful for books.
My favourite pieces of media can shift a lot over time, but I will follow the rules and only give one answer this week. 😉
Thank you to Rissa for submitting this week’s topic.
1. 
It would be lovely to have a holiday that was purposefully designed to encourage spending time in nature with whoever you want to socialize with that day.