I know a lot of you are like Jeanna ^[1]: You love Halloween. You love the costumes, the candy, and the drunken debauchery combined with the candy.

I hate Halloween. And I have for a long time.

I hate it because it’s so ridiculously commercialized that it’s nothing but an excuse for people to sell stuff you’re going to use once a year, then throw in storage. It’s a waste. And every year, it’s a new costume, or yard ornament.

I hate it because it hits right around Daylight Savings Time ends, which just serves as a reminder that the dark, rainy winter is about to hit with a thud.

I hate it because you can’t go into a store without seeing Christmas decorations stacked next to the Halloween decorations. I was in Home Depot last week, and they have the Christmas trees up and ready to go — right next to all the spooky stuff. Yeah, you know what my nativity set needs this year? Zombies. The Christ Child was born to be Zombie Jesus, after all.

I hate it because it used to be a kid’s holiday, one where you’d see an adult or two dressed up, usually a teacher or someone who works with kids. Now, everyone’s doing it, and it just looks silly for adults to be dressed up. When I was a kid, I had one of my teeth knocked out on Halloween. My dentist showed up dressed as a bag lady. And he sat there putting a temporary cap on me with his floppy hat and his ripped lacy cardigan. Back then, it was kinda funny. Now, I walk around my place of employ, and the medical staff are all dressed like that, to the point that you can’t tell the patients from the doctors. That’s just not right.

Oh, and I hate it because teenagers, not in costume, show up at my door wanting candy. Oh please. Why don’t you just TP the blackberry bush, egg my car, and be done with it, because if you’re out of elementary school, you shouldn’t even be out trick-or-treating, and you’re certainly not getting anything without a costume.

Mind you, this isn’t some religious objection. It’s not like I think this is the Holiday O’ Satan. I mean, holidays only have those meanings if you choose to let them have those meanings. I know atheists who celebrate Christmas, after all. (And you pagan-wiccan-neo-Celts out there, Happy Samhain ^[2].)

It’s a “why is this holiday so blown out of proportion” objection. It’s the consumer waste. It’s the billions we spend on sugar “just because.” It is, to paraphrase psychiatrist Lucy Van Pelt, “run by an East Coast syndicate.” It’s now our second-highest spending holiday after Christmas. It’s an overblown commercial spending spree for adults who just don’t want to grow up. Anyone over the age of 12 shouldn’t even be allowed to buy a costume. Between global warming, terrorism, rogue states with nuclear programs, MRSA, another year of election campaigning, four more years of the stuffed shirt known as David Della, and SPI ^[3], we have plenty to be scared of.

Modern Halloween is stupid.

Dia de Loe Muertos ^[4], on the other hand… that I can get behind.