How the Grinch Stole Halloween

Do I have to pretend candy corn isn't revolting and scandalous costumes are adorable?

The last time I really enjoyed Halloween was probably around 1975. Back in those days, your “princess” costume consisted of a stiff, screen-printed trash bag that tied in the back like a hospital gown (the most euphemistic term since big-boned) and had a princess face on the front for extra emphasis. Your sweaty plastic mask—the one that looked like a poorly painted paper plate with eye holes the size of slivered almonds—strapped to your face with a rubber band that broke before you even left the house. Tears were involved.

Not me and my siblings (I stole the photo from this gal) but it could certainly be.

After impatiently posing for a few Polaroids, you spent the eve trotting around your neighborhood shoving Laffy Taffy and Pop Rocks into your sticky pillowcase, brazenly breaking your parents’ number-one, most non-negotiable rule of survival and literally taking candy from every stranger you could shake down.

It was around that era that a news story—or maybe it was a rumor—swept the suburbs: there was a lunatic out there, possibly hundreds of them, hiding razor blades in candy bars. Whether it actually happened or not didn’t matter; the message was clear: Halloween was not for sissies.

I mean, just… no.

Overnight, the formerly festive holiday went from a fun high-fructose harvest to a highly regulated safety drill. Moms inspected every Milky Way like it was evidence in a crime lab, grandmas started handing out shiny pennies instead of Butterfingers just to be safe, and the rest of us learned that trick-or-treat had a dark, literal side.

My lack of enthusiasm for Halloween has sharpened with age. I can’t help it. I dislike the idea of sending kids door-to-door begging strangers for junk food. I despise scary costumes and banana-flavored anything and trying to guess what someone is supposed to be (“I’m the barista from Gilmore Girls, duh.”) I hate that there is no such thing as a sailor or a witch or a bottle of hand sanitizer costume anymore; they have to be slutty sailor and promiscuous witch and thirst-trap hand sanitizer.

Thanks, Yandy.

I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that parents who won’t allow their kids to watch The Simpsons will let them cosplay as Freddie Krueger. I don’t enjoy opening my door to strangers who aren’t dressed like blood-soaked zombies. I miss the days when trick-or-treating was a quaint neighborhood activity and not something that involved cross-town buses and strategic sugar-haul optimization. Most of all, I am loath to admit that if I were a psychopath or an axe murderer, I’d live for Halloween. I’d find the nearest haunted house and set up my butcher shop and no one would suspect a thing. They’d think the screaming was just part of an especially top-notch production.

(I will concede, however, that I’m here for all the pet costumes. In fact, if anyone wants to start a petition to change Halloween to Halloweinerdog or Howl-o-ween, I’ll be the first one to sign it.)

Of course, the modern version of Pagan Mardi Gras has about as much in common with its origins as a pumpkin spice latte does with an actual gourd. What began as a Celtic ritual to ward off evil spirits somehow evolved into suburban toddlers dressed as Elsa collecting Kit Kats like sea glass and drunk nurses doing Jell-O shots out of syringes. We traded bonfires and ghost stories for Spirit Halloween pop-ups in abandoned Bed Bath & Beyonds and turned “appeasing the dead” into “sacrificing our kids to the candy cartel for a shot at a full-size Snickers.”

So tonight, when my neighborhood descends into chaos—tiny vampires tripping over their capes, inflatable sumo wrestlers tumbling into garden beds, parents in light-up sneakers dragging wagons full of chocolate-drunk spawn—I’ll be the one behind the dark porch light. No cauldron of Skittles, no animatronic skeleton, no fog machine. Just me, sipping wine in the glow of my laptop, praying no one rings the bell and forces me to pretend I think their six-year-old’s Cuties costume (the trampy dancer, not the tangerine) is… cute.

If anyone asks me today what I’m going to be for Halloween, the answer is easy: I’m the Grinch. Duh.

I know mine may not be the popular take on this hallowed—ahem—tradition. (If it absolves me in any way, I absolutely love a good theme party and have a closet full of wild wigs, weird shoes, and otherwise impractical accessories.) Feel free to tell me what a buzzkill I am in the comments! :)

My hubby and me at totally tripendicular prom.

My new book won’t be out in time for holiday gifting, but this one is! :)

P.S. Huge heartfelt thanks to my dear friend and biggest cheerleader Laura Kasner of Clotostrophe for the heads-up on this great plug for chlorine dioxide and my upcoming book with Dr. Pierre Kory! Senator Ron Johnson is a national treasure (and Steve Kirsch is pretty solid, too). You can watch the full interview here.