I hate Halloween, but not why you think!

As a child, I loved Halloween. In my family we didn’t get a lot of treats, so this was the time of year I could load up. In fact, in my time you had to have a medium sized pillow case to haul the load of sweet treats. Our trek would start as soon as the sun went down (and in the northeast that was 530 pm) and end when we could drag our pillowcase no further.  Adorn with our costumes, we would run from house to house in anticipation of the full sized Hershey’s chocolate bars, Reese’s cup, Charleston Chews, and the wax lips.

Over the years this jubilant kid holiday has turned into something less. It has became a holiday of the things I like least. In fact, I’m a little concerned that I will be the grumpy old man, who has all the lights off at his house in hopes that no kids come begging for sugar laded snacks. I guess I could give out pamphlets on nutrition, or like a friend in MO did, hand out cans of tuna! But here are some of the reason Halloween is sliding down my ladder of favorite holidays (these are listed in no specific order):

If it goes bad, it goes bad on the hayride

1. Hayrides, I have asthma and hay allergies (enough said)  plus there is always the guy who starts the hay fight. Then everyone is throwing hay, shoving it down people’s shirts etc, and you are picking hay out of places hay shouldn’t be. It's usually cold and you have to eat the dust and fumes stirred up by the diesel powered tractor. Not to mention every Halloween Party that has gone bad, went bad on the hayride.

2. Pumpkin Carving, I have 4 kids. When they were much younger I had to scrap and empty the guts of four pumpkins. And, unless you allow your small children to play with extremely sharp carving utensils, which we don’t, I end up carving four pumpkins. You better get the sculpture just right or you will have a screaming crying kid traumatized that daddy gave Mr. Pumpkin a square nose instead of a trapezoid! Then there is the clean up after


3. Adult Costumes, The guy/gal who comes up to you at the kids’ party in full character, all dressed up in a costume they obviously spent hours designing, attempting to get you to participate in their banter. I especially love this when the man is dress as a woman and he thinks he is really sexy.

4. Bobbling for Apples, as long as you go first, or immediately after a blood relative, no problem.

5. Trying to carries 4 individual plates loaded down with hot dogs, chips, chili, assorted other finger foods, 4 cups full of drink, utensils and napkins.  Only to return to an empty buffet to feed yourself after you’ve feed the youngsters.

6. This Halloween, I participated in one of my all-time least favorite things. Our church had an awesome Halloween Party  under a huge 12,000 sq. foot barn which included a really good Bluegrass band (and I like Bluegrass in moderation). In the middle of the barn was a dance floor. Well, I have a 9 yr daughter who likes to dance and a dad that doesn’t. So off to do-si-do and promenade we went (4th grade square dancing did come in handy). The kicker is we were the only ones on the dance floor. The rest of the crowd was hoopin‘, hollerin‘ and chapping.  I don’t like being the center of attention especially when I'm making a fool of myself. The last time I danced in public was my wedding 15 yrs ago, and that’s because I had too (and loved every second of it, honey!).

I hate Halloween, but I do it for the kids as any good dad would. As dads there are many things we do just because of the kids. Getting out of our comfort zones, or doing things when we don’t have the energy to do is good for us. In fact, how many times do we encourage our kids to do the same. Here is my challenge to you; do something this week with your kids that they love. DO it with a smile. Do it with joy. Have fun (dancing with my girl was a little fun). If your kids are little, they aren’t going to be little for long, so enjoy it. Build memories, build relationships, stretch yourself, be the crazy goofy dad who makes your kids laugh. We are now ramping up the holiday season and many opportunities are coming to accomplish these things. Dads we have a tough job but let’s raise our level of dad-ness.