The Only Things I Don't Like About This Time of Year

As much as I get into Halloween, I hate to admit that there are some things I don't like or get about it.  I mean, nothing is perfect, sadly there is a downside to everything.  For all the celebrations, candy corn, costumes, parties and TV show episodes, the following are something I just don't get about it.

1.  Sexy Women's Costumes. I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Why does it always have to be like this?  Every year, I expect to hear rants about how every women's costume is "Sexy-This-or-That."  You would think I, being from California where it tends to be warm well into October wouldn't have to worry about freezing my you-know-what off. Unfortunately it isn't always that way.  Yesterday it started getting colder than in the last few weeks that seemed like a late patch of  summer, prompting me to drag my hooded jacket of the closet.  I now wonder how cold it will be when I put on my flapper costume on Thursday. I wore it to a celebration at a bar on Saturday, and it started to get a little cold.  I know I've picked something a little revealing, but it looks the way it actually did in the 1920s, unlike other costumes which reduced a witch or princess down to a corset dress with puffy, off-the shoulder sleeves or make Wonder Woman  look like someone in a ballerina's tutu.  This wasn't how these characters looked originally, why should they be made this way?

Before I settled on the flapper (one of several ideas I'd had in mind before and as this month began), I narrowed my choices down to a that one, along with a French maid and prisoner,a ll of which I saw at my local Kmart, at the time selling for 30% off.  The prisoner costume said it was for men, but I think that's just silly. There is no reason I could not have gotten it; I just decided not to, at least for this year. It could easily be a unisex costume, even if the package doesn't say so.  And I don't get why those labeled as unisex costumes are almost always shown being modeled by men, and when you see them at a seasonal Halloween store that pops up in an empty storefront, they are inevitably placed in the men's section.  And I don't why a tank dress is supposed to pass for an M&M or  Scrabble board costume.  It just so happens that at the bar I went to last week, a man and woman came in prisoner costumes, and both of them had the full-coverage pants and shirt with black and white stripes.  The woman did not have the sexy one.  Good for her, I thought. Now if I choose this costume another year, I won't feel guilty about it, but I wouldn't have felt guilty anyway.  Thinking that women not wearing sexy costumes is breaking a rule is just stupid!  Do what you want, go against the silliness of all this.

Why this sexy costume has stretched to young girls is another thing. In some ways I'm glad not to have kids so I'm not going through this problem with them.  But I've noticed boys costumes for horror movies characters such as Leatherface and Jason Voorhees and boys' pimp costumes.  There don't seem to be as many complaints about these being inappropriate as there seem to be about girls's skimpy costumes.  I certainly wouldn't allow any of these if I had children.

2.  Christmas stuff already being up.  Come on, putting up Christmas in late October seems too early, but nowadays everyone seem to have Christmas in September next to Halloween.  Kmart didn't even Halloween up until the first week of September, yet Christmas was already up at the end of that sam month.  Today I passed by the mobbed Halloween aisles and heard "The Twelve Days of Christmas" playing from one of the artificial Christmas trees that have been there since the last week of September.  I don't want to be hearing Christmas music yet!  I've only heard "Thriller" once this month and heard a guy at the karaoke bar doing "Monster Mash" last Friday. This is what you should be hearing right now.  No one should have to hear about a partridge and pear tree until December 1st.  I know that some stations start playing Christmas songs as early as mid-November, but that's a rant for another time--like in November.

3. Not getting any trick-or-treaters.  OK, this is about my neighborhood, and I know I can't do much about it.  But I will be gone, at the karaoke bar Halloween bash this coming Thursday so I won't have to worry about a repeat of last year--buying about six bags of candy on sale at Safeway, only to have just one kid show up.  I took the rest of the candy to work two days later (I took the next day off last year).

4. Seeing it get overshadowed by sports and politics.  I just don't like sports (it's just how I am) and unfortunately this is when the World Series takes place. The  local bar having a Halloween celebration is likely to have the TV screens above the bar stools tuned into the World Series as was the case last Saturday.  And of course, every four years we have presidential election, occurring up to a week after Halloween and the candidates seem to be fodder for costumes.  But the election seems to dominate the media in the month leading up to the final decision.  And in a normal year(non-presidential-election year), local, regional and state election signs are everywhere, on a sidewalk or a lawn alongside someone's jack-o-lanterns.  As a side note, I hate it when campaign signs remain up after the elections are over.

But this about all I can really say I don't like about the Halloween season.  Other that that, it's one of the times of the year I get excited about, along with Christmas and the start of summer.  Getting to have parties, wear a costume--what's not to love about that? As long as I enjoy all these things, it's easy to forget the bad stuff and enjoy what you like about it all.