Let’s start off on the right foot immediately: none of us want to be working right now, we all want to be watching scary movies and eating the Halloween candy we bought to hand out tonight, and most of us would rather walk into the sea than do anything other than the aforementioned. (Like, I haven’t even looked at my planner yet, and I don’t even want to because I know my Halloween dreams will be immediately kiboshed.) (And I don’t even know what those dreams are — it’s not like I can’t watch scary movies after today.)
But okay, look. Halloween is a lot of fun for a lot of people, but now that the adult weekend has passed, so it’s not about us anymore, it’s about the children, and JUST KIDDING everything is always about us all the time, especially if I have anything to do with it.
So here’s this: how to make this day — a day for children and candy and costumes — all about you (me) (us).
1) Buy more candy than you could possibly hand out under the guise of generosity. That way, you will look heroic when you’re eating the leftovers for the next five days.
2) Buy only your favourite candy. Also, if you don’t like those weird Halloween toffees (what are those?) then neither do the children, so bless.
3) Be the cool hander-outer. I don’t know what that means, but maybe greet every trick-or-treater with “How do you do, fellow kids?” or use buzzwords like, “Cool!” and . . . other words children say.
4) Raise a glass to the parents at the end of the driveway, drinking Bailey’s from a thermos. They don’t know you’re drinking herbal tea because your stomach is upset, and they will never know.
5) Have a scary movie on in the background. This screams, “I am not afraid of anything, teens who are taller than me at the door right now.” Also, “I had no plans to go out tonight anyway, I would actually rather die than leave my home.” And maybe, “I would never be able to watch this without knowing people will be stopping by every 10 minutes.”
6) Give a knowing nod to any teen still trick-or-treating. I mean, hey: you know, you’ve done it, you’re hip, it’s fine. Let them hold onto their youth because you can’t and you’re an adult now. Wonder when they’ll realize they can just buy a box of candy like you and your friends started to in grade 12.
7) Give out full cans of pop because those are honestly the best and you will also be the person who hydrated an army of kids, questing for nourishment.
8) Same with full size chocolate bars, unless you’re on my personal budget and in that case, sorry.
9) Leave work right now to mentally prepare for being the best candy hander-outer that you can be. Also: so you can nap and stop at Sephora for those green tea wipes you ran out of last night.
10) Maybe actually just call in sick right now because it was a long weekend and you deserve it and it takes a while to put candy in a bowl and put those window decals up, and also you work so hard. You work so damn hard, and if you can’t rest up on Halloween — the day of monsters and reruns of Jamie Lee Curtis films — then when can you? Exactly.
Happy Halloween, it’s about you now.
