Halloween Shouldn't Feel Like Homework

At the time of this writing, we are just over a week into the month of October. Similar to the last five or six Octobers, I don't feel the Halloween spirit pulsating through me. While others are a fourth of the way through a thirty-one day horror movie challenge I'm thinking, "Eh... I'd rather watch an old episode of The Flash."

This bothers me and its bothered me for years now. Each year, I seem to have less and less holiday spirit. It's not just Halloween, it's Thanksgiving, and Christmas too. One of the ways I've tried to counterbalance my lack of interest is by writing about them. I force myself to seek out new and old things about the holidays I enjoy, so I can write about them. The year, as you may have noticed, I got a whole month jump start on posting Halloween/spooky themed posts. I've written (and in some cases re-written) around forty posts thus far, plenty for not only this year, but next year. But despite the satisfaction I get from writing, not once has any of this made me feel like its Halloween.

Tonight, I realized, I've been fighting a losing battle. I've fallen into another trap, where I've allowed Hollywood and my own childhood memories to dictate my expectations for what Halloween should be. I've allowed the popularity of this season to create something that feels more like a chore, than a fun season to enjoy. I've allowed the pressure of needing to watch my old favorites, watch the new shows (Carrie, Crystal Lake), and commit myself, my time, and my money to a process that quite honestly, I'm just not interested in anymore. Sure, I love a good horror movie, and I go through periods throughout the year where I watch nothing but horror for a month at a time, but looking back at my watch history, that often happens in March, not October.

And why shouldn't it? When I was growing up, Halloween wasn't about watching thirty-one horror movies in thirty-one days. Halloween was about the atmosphere. It was about the temperatures dropping, the days getting shorter, the decorations appearing in stores, and the Halloween episodes of my favorite sitcoms airing on television. I didn't have to do anything to make it feel like Halloween. The season came to me naturally.

I think that's something we've lost with the way we consume entertainment today. Everything is available all the time. I can pull up my favorite Roseanne Halloween episode in February or watch Halloween III: Season of the Witch in the middle of June. Streaming services have made it possible to watch just about anything whenever we want, and yet somehow, we've turned that freedom into another obligation.

There are watchlists to complete, new releases to keep up with, and entire seasons of television that drop at once. Something that once brought me a lot of joy has started to resemble homework.

Take Mike Flanagan's adaptation of Carrie which was just released. I'm a fan of Flanagan's work, and the idea of him tackling Carrie in a modern setting sounds interesting. But when I think about committing eight hours to another television series, my enthusiasm starts to fade. It's not that I don't want to see it. I just don't want to feel like I need to see it, especially when there are dozens of other things competing for my attention.

I've noticed the same thing with entertainment in general. Friends will binge an entire season of a television show over a weekend, and I'll still be sitting on episode three a month later. Not because I dislike the show, but because sometimes I'd rather watch something else. I enjoy an episode or two and move on with my evening and my life. I'm not in a hurry.

I have no problem approaching video games this way. I'll buy a game a year or two after its release when it's on sale, play it for a while, and sometimes put it aside for months or even years. When the mood strikes, I pick it back up. I don't feel like I've failed at playing video games because I haven't finished the latest release. So why have I been treating movies and television any differently?

Then there's the weather. Living in North Carolina, October doesn't always feel much different from September. Some years, I'm still wearing shorts and running the air conditioner while television commercials show families wearing sweaters, walking through piles of orange leaves, and sipping hot apple cider.

That's the version of autumn I grew up seeing on television, and it's the one I still associate with Halloween. It's hard to get excited about crisp fall evenings when you're sweating your balls off on the way to the mailbox.

But that's another expectation I've created for myself. I'm comparing the October I'm experiencing to some idealized version of October that exists in my memory and on television. And of course, reality is going to come up short.

Maybe that's the problem with all of this. I've spent so much time trying to manufacture a feeling that I've forgotten how to enjoy the things that once gave me that feeling in the first place.

I don't remember sitting around as a kid wondering whether I was doing enough to celebrate Halloween. I didn't have a checklist of movies to watch or shows to finish. I watched whatever happened to be on television, enjoyed the decorations, and looked forward to the cooler weather. Some years were more memorable than others, but I never felt like I had to make the season special.

It just was.

I think there's a lesson in that, not only for Halloween but for the other holidays as well. Maybe the solution isn't to try harder. Maybe it's to stop trying so hard.

If I feel like watching an old slasher movie, I'll watch one. If I'd rather spend an evening with The Flash, that's fine too. Maybe I'll watch a few old Halloween sitcom episodes, put up one or two decorations, or enjoy the first genuinely cool evening of the season. And if none of those things happen, that's okay too. My cats will probably knock the decorations over anyway.

I don't need to prove that I'm a horror fan by watching more horror movies. I don't need to write forty Halloween posts to justify my love for the season. And I certainly don't need to spend October chasing a feeling I experienced thirty years ago.

Those memories are wonderful, but they don't need to become expectations.

I still love Halloween. I still love horror movies. I still love the thought of a cool October evening with something spooky on television. I just think it's time I stopped treating the things I love like obligations. And who knows? Maybe once I stop trying to force the Halloween spirit, I'll find that it never went anywhere. I was just too busy looking for it to notice.

So, if you need me this Halloween season, I'll probably be watching episodes of The Flash while waiting for the temperature to drop below 80 degrees. And for the first time in years, I'm going to try not to feel guilty about it.