Halloween: Getting Better
It's no secret to most here that I hate not only holidays, but nearly any kind of special event or ceremonial occasion- Christmas and Thanksgiving being my most hated. I decided Halloween- you decide whether that's a special event or whatever- is gradually becoming the least annoying to me, and that's a good thing.
Sure, the stores still dedicate their seasonal shelving to candy and Halloween decorations, and that's annoying. But what else are they going to put in those seasonal shelves, anyway? Yep, you still see people putting up the stupid Halloween decorations, but it seems to me there's fewer and fewer people doing it. That's a good thing.
The best part of Halloween, though, seems to be the attitude of parents who take their kids trick or treating. They don't seem to be bothering nearly everyone as much as they used to.
Those of us that have hated Halloween for time immemorial- myself being a prime example- make a point out of not putting up Halloween decorations. Some of us even go to the point of keeping the house as dark as possible on Halloween night as a way of letting people know we're not interested in participating. Still, used to be you could always count on some kids or parents that have no problem coming to the door, anyway. HOW RUDE!
For any of you parents still doing this, STOP IT. If the lights are off and there's no Halloween decorations up, that means that household has opted out of the trick- or- treating crap. In fact, I think we ought to make it an unwritten rule that if a house doesn't have so much as a pumpkin out front, you should leave them alone.
But it's gotten better over the years. I think more kids and parents are starting to understand some people want to opt- out and are respecting the default opt- out signs: No decorations and keeping the lights low and windows covered as much as possible. I've noticed fewer and fewer kids coming to our door over the years. For what might have been the first time ever, I don't think anyone came to our door last night.
Thank you. Maybe this is a sign that Halloween will eventually be delegated to the dustbin of history? Now if we could only figure a way to get people behind shutting down all the other ones, especially Christmas and Thanksgiving.
Damn. Now that I brought this up, I just realized today is the first day of the worst part of my year: "The Holiday Season". Yuck. Wish I could be out of town until January 2.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 7:08 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
That's telling them, Fred. You go, guy!
I don't like Halloween because it isn't a paid holiday. At least this year it was on a Saturday. Some years it is on a Wednesday.
I can pretend to care about pagan tree worship holiday, some raising of the dead spooky Halloween in April weirdness, or celebration of autumn eating disorders... or whatever, Nazi Day, kill Chinese day, I could care less... as long as it is a paid vacation day.
All these holidays they try to pull with no day off are just wack. All these holidays should all be in a row, in the middle of the summer, and call it middle of the summer two weeks off to go camping weeks. I would vote for that.
Mr. Nice,
what kind of job do you have to get paid holidays? And the time to blog? We who are self-employed don't get any paid holidays and we are usually responsible to pay for all the state, federal, county freeloaders.
I'm self-employed as well. I used to have a job where I was delegated such "perks" as paid holidays, 20-25 minute lunch breaks, 10 minute stretching breaks, and health care (HealthNet!).
I am all too familiar with the extreme tax rate of self-employment and the lack of any hard and fast holidays. The only point I was trying to make was that holidays where nobody gets the day off (e.g. Halloween) are bunk.
You can save your talking down bull for someone else. I know full well that "we" are not really responsible for any big share of tax burden unless by "we" you mean people who make $1,000,000+ per year in profits. The average self-employed working person pays a high tax relative to their income yet contributes very little to float all of these "freeloaders." Please get it right if you are going to make such ridiculous statements.
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