Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Halloween Makes Me A Bit Batty

I don't like to be thought of as a scrooge, but ... I am not a fan of Halloween.


There - I said it!


I do love the little kids in the adorable costumes. Who doesn't love fairies and princesses and cowboys?


I do love the candy!


I do love the spooky music and creepy haunted houses.


So ... what is it about Halloween I don't like?


It's the decorations my kids insist we string and paste and hang up all around our house. Those skeletons and bats and witches and stringy spider webs.


I think it is not so much the theme of Halloween that bugs me so much - but the colors.


The ORANGE and BLACK just does not fit in with my lovely home decor. It CLASHES! It's GAUDY! It messes with my obsessive tendencies and it takes everything in me to visually tolerate the pumpkins sitting on the front porch and the bats hanging in our foyer for weeks at a time.


I still put them out, though. My littlest daughter, Alexis, loves them and for her --- I do it.


Christmas decorations don't tend to bother me as much, but ... those Halloween decorations drive me BATTY!


What about you? Are you like me and hate those darn Halloween decorations or ... are on On The Flipside and LOVE Halloween and LOVE all the decorating with the goblins, pumpkins and bats?


Please don't forget to go over and participate in the poll on this topic.

Poll results: Do You Love Putting Out Halloween Decorations? 12 people participated in poll. 6 (50%) said Yes. 6 (50%) said No.


24 comments:

Brenda said...

I throw some pumpkin lights over the limbs of the fake plant in the corner of the dining room, set out my lighted haunted tree and house on the mantal, and call it done. Over at my neighbors you can see the yard for the tombstones, ghosts, and buzzards. She loves Halloween.

Gretchen said...

I don't decorate too much only because putting out a million decorations means TAKING DOWN a million decorations, and right in time to put out more decorations for Christmas. No thank you.

Nancy said...

I'm with you and then some. I have always disliked Halloween, the dressing up, the door to door begging, the decorations

I had to bite my tongue when my kids were small, but now? It's a dinner night out (away from the 'hood activities) for me =)

Courtney said...

I don't hate it as much as you, but probably because my kids get so darned excited. I hate decorating for any holiday because I hate taking it all down. Seems like such a waste of my time!

Persnickety Ticker said...

I go all out of Halloween like some people do for Xmas. I love it!

But when it comes to the red and green? Eh...not so much. My family is lucky we even get a tree. Bah humbug.

Ellyn said...

I love a fall themed center piece. But I agree about the ghosts and goblins. And don't even get me started on the spiders.

Brittany said...

I absolutely LOVE the colors of fall. The reds, deep oranges, browns...etc.. are the colors I have in my house anyway, so I can decorate for fall easily! I actually do not decorate for Halloween. I do put up fall decor, but I don't care for the goblins/ghosts/ and those sort of things. I do love the little kiddies all dressed up though!

Anonymous said...

I LOVE Halloween . . . the dressing up and the cool weather and trick or treating in blizzards and and and :-)

We have a ton of Halloween decorations - both inside and outside - but it is NOTHING close to matching our neighbor - the neighborhood decorating fool - he's got a river of blood in his front yard!

Hmmm - I guess this means I should actually get my ton of decorations out, huh...

Denise said...

Hi Kellan. I've been away from blogland for awhile but now I'm trying to get back in the swing of it all and I'm catching up on my reading now. I like Halloween stuff in moderation. I don't have many decorations to put out, just a wooden black cat and pumkin wreath on my door and a fiber optic pumpkin on my entertainment center. I can deal with that, I guess. When I was a kid, we had everything covered with witches, skeletons, and goblins. I love it then.
Denise

tammy said...

I'll admit it. I love them. In fact, I am obsessed with them. I posted a bunch of pics of my obsession a few posts back. It's an addiction that has to be stopped.

E said...

Nah I love it. I love the fat storybook pumpkins with the bumpy sides piled high next to the red orange Cinderella pumpkins and the lunar white ones. I hand swags of dried leaves over mirrors and garlands of nuts and leaves along stairwells. I go crazy at every season change every holiday and holy day. I love to fill my house with birch from the woods draped with holly and greens in December and bittersweet orange in October. This is one of my favorite pleasures. I'm with Alexis..bring on the bats!

dani said...

k,
i've never been a big fan of halloween, either... even when i was little. now, the candy (specifically the reese's cups and snickers aren't too bad, though;)!!!
l,
d

bichonpawz said...

It is alot of work to decorate, but I enjoy doing it up for each and every holiday. I do not do as much for the holidays as I used to when my daughter was small, but I still do it. My mom was REALLY into the holidays and I believe she passed it on to me. My own 22 year old daughter thinks it is a waste of her time. She just bought her first house, so I suspect she just may be changing her mind!!

C said...

We don't do Halloween. We never have. It's not really done in NZ. I guess it's become more accepted over the past 10 or so years... but most people don't participate. There's very few decorations put up. I've only ever seen one house in my area put anything up.
We usually buy some candy, simple because there will be a few kids who come by....
I only went trick or treating once - when I was 15! And that was simply becaus a friend and I decided we wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

But no, never done Halloween, and unless I end up living in America one day, I don't intend to ever do Halloween. I personally find it an un-necessary holiday. I've been the to All Hallows Eve services, but that's not Halloween. That's not what it's become, anyway.

Mamarazzi said...

i put out a few things here and there. mostly fall stuff...so it lasts till November. i am lazy like that.

laurwilk said...

I absolutely love Halloween and everything about it! The decorations. The costumes. The weather. The colors. And of course, the pumpkins, pumpkins, everywhere!

AdriansCrazyLife said...

Around our house, Halloween is our FAVORITE holiday. My kids start planning their costumes for next year at midnight on Oct 31st. Little fiends!

Now Thanksgiving is the one I could just do without. I know most people love it, but it's all about family and when you don't have extended family, it's just another reminder of what you are missing out on. Sometimes we get together with friends from church or something, but it's still awkward and I'd rather just skip it.

Jaina said...

I love decorating for any season, especially for Halloween. :)

Bex said...

how appropriate that the decorations drive you batty!

personally i like orange - i have an orange living room. when i moved to tx i became a UT fan bc of the colors (true story). but it's enough effort for me to put up and take down christmas decorations let alone any other time of year.

what a great mama you are to go through the trouble for sweet alexis. she will remember that when she grows up - how her mother always decorated for halloween even though she didn't like it just for the sake of her loving daughter, betty boop!

Andrea said...

The only thing we do for decorating for Halloween is carve a pumpkin and put it on our front porch. Other than that, there is no indication of Halloween. I agree that the decorations just aren't pretty....

Anonymous said...

I decorate for fall, but I mostly steer clear of Halloween decorations -- the few I have, I put out just for that week. We carve pumpkins and light jack-o-lanterns, because that is crafty and fun. Bats make the cut because real bats eat mosquitoes --which means fewer mosquitoes to eat ME-- so bats are my friends. ;)

Some of this might stem from when my oldest was quite young and VERY scared of all but the cutest Halloween decor; masks of any kind HIDE something, and those scary/evil laugh-tracks? {shiver} He still does not like to be frightened by truly scary movies or family members hiding in dark places. So I suppose I am extra-sensitive to that.

I like the cute and fun side of Halloween. I love to see the little ones out trick-or-treating with their families, and if the teens are dressed up and polite, I like to see them, too.

Putting the FUN in DysFUNctional said...

Firmly on the flipside over here. Halloween is my favorite holiday and I love the decorations!

Forgetfulone said...

I'm not a fan of Halloween, either, but it's more because it's not an actual holiday. There's nothing to celebrate. The candy companies are celebrating! But what are WE celebrating? I think some of the decor is cute. Some is morbid. I guess I don't like all the spooky stuff.

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