Why You Wish You Were Still a Kid on Halloween
We love Halloween. It’s the perfect excuse to eat as many tiny candy bars as we can (the calories are fun-sized!), buy seasonal gourds that we don’t really know what to do with, and watch scary movies all night long on Netflix. Unfortunately though — as much fun as Halloween is when you’re an adult — there is no doubt that it was still better being a kid on All Hallows’ Eve.
As a kid, there were costume competitions, school parties, and a month-long anticipation for the holiday. Remember the excitement you felt after getting home from trick-or-treating, spreading your candy out on the floor (organized into piles labeled “Mine” or “Trade”), and then basking in the warm glow of your success?
Alas...Halloween as an adult is just not as much fun as when we were kids though. Here’s why:
1) Tastes Like Victory
When we were kids, we had to wait until Halloween to eat our candy. It tasted like patience, hard work, and maybe even a little sweat and tears. Er...well, not really; it actually tasted like delicious caramel and nougat filling, but it also tasted like victory. We had to earn that candy by trudging through the cold wet October night, in an uncomfortable Halloween costume, carrying a pillow case that weighed 10 lbs.
Now, we buy our Halloween candy at the store. In fact, we buy it at the beginning of October (thinking we’re “getting a head start”) not realizing that we’re actually just setting ourselves up for failure. We will — undoubtedly — eat the candy before Halloween arrives and be forced to buy several more bags; each bag will taste of sadness and defeat.
2) Trick-or-Treat, Smell Our Feet
Oh how we miss the long-gone days of trick-or-treating!
Even if handing out candy as an adult is fun, it still feels a little like we didn’t get invited to the cool kids’ party... Or, it’s like being the one Stormtrooper who didn’t get the memo to wear white to the party.
There’s also that moment when we start throwing fistfuls of chocolate at kids because we’re just desperate to get rid of all the candy.
We see visions of extra calories lurking in the house (we were supposed to go on a diet after the holiday!); plus, now we’re just tired and want to pretend like we’re not home anymore.
3) To Costume, Or Not To Costume:
When we were kids, it was never a question about dressing up. We always dressed up! Sometimes we even had one Halloween costume for school and a different one for trick-or-treating.
As adults though, we struggle with the age-old, “to dress up at work, or not to dress up at work” question. Do we risk being the only person to dress up or do we make a pact with our coworkers beforehand that we’ll all dress up? Do we hide a Hulk costume underneath our shirt? Maybe we’ll just throw caution to the wind and go into work proudly dressed like Ben Franklin (wearing tights and a curly white wig).
Except — believe us — the Halloween magic will wear off after 3 hours of being the only person in a costume. You’ll be quietly typing up an accounting report at your desk, dying of heatstroke, and hiding your costume underneath your winter coat (which you’ll tell people you always wear at work. Really).
4) Witching Hour
Halloween was exciting as a kid because it meant we could stay up late. Except as an adult, all we want to do is not stay up late.
We don’t avoid sleep now because we’re worried about a monster in the closet — like Boo in Pixar’s Monsters Inc. In fact, we’re more worried about becoming the monster if we don’t go to bed soon.
There’s a Halloween party tonight? Like one that happens at night? No thanks; we’ve already put on our fuzzy slippers, sweatpants, and we’re covered in a fine dusting of Cheetos’ orange cheese. If our 10-year-old selves could see us now...they’d disown us.
5) Pumpkin vs. Jack-o'-Lantern
When we were kids, carving a pumpkin was one of the most exciting parts of the entire holiday. We got to use a knife, we were allowed to get dirty/covered in orange goop, and then we even got to play with fire. How could you not want to do that?
Well...as an adult, it’s far less thrilling. Now, it just seems like a lot of work to ruin a perfectly good pumpkin. Can we just display it in a decorative Cornucopia with gourds and other weirdly-shaped vegetables, like the other old people do?
Nevertheless, the number one reason that Halloween is just not as much fun as an adult, is that finding the right costume is hard work. When you were a kid, you could dress up as a chicken for 8 years in a row and think nothing of it.
Now, you feel like you can’t reuse a costume, or it needs to be funny, clever, and totally unique.
So, that is where Design By Humans comes in!
Don’t stress eat all of your Halloween candy hunting for the best costume this year. Check out DBH for the coolest Halloween styles and Costume tees from brands like Star Wars, Marvel, and Nintendo and act like a kid again for the night!
