Candy, costumes and Christians

Once, I got down onto a dirty, beer-covered floor of a pitch-black room and waited for half an hour to scare my roommate.

I have an insatiable sweet tooth for both candy and college girls under-dressed in leather.

I watch old horror movies all year round, even when Christmas comes.

Put all of these together – terror, sweets, horror and slutty costumes – you get my favorite holiday: Halloween.

Everything about Halloween turns me on.

For me, it is the one night I can dress up like a complete ass and not have anyone question it. It’s the one night, surrounded by a group of my peers, I can drink beer, listen to Lamb of God and eat candy simultaneously.

It’s the one night where everyone shares the mind-set that massive amounts of mischief must happen.

At least that’s how Halloween is in the circles I travel.

Still, there will be poor children who are locked in their bedrooms by Mommy and Daddy while they watch all their friends go door-to-door, getting unfathomable amounts of chocolate.

They’ll beg and plead, asking “Why? Why can’t I go, too?”

Gripping their rosaries, knuckles white with fear, Mommy and Daddy whisper “Because ... Halloween is the Devil’s Day ... you don’t want him to chop your head off while you’re trick-or-treating, do you?”

Now, that was a dramatization – a poor one I might add – but I’m trying to get a point across.

Even though some people might think otherwise, the Halloween we know is no longer religious.

Sure, some so-called Satanists might go out in the night and spray-paint 666 on a church or crucify a kitten and dedicate it to the dark lord, but I think if Satan was real, he’d have the sense to know those people are slow.

Sure, Halloween was originally a “religious” holiday, but most people don’t even know what it was based on.

The Celts, who lived in the area that is now Ireland about 2,000 years ago, celebrated Samhain on October 31, the night before their new year started. They believed the ghosts of the dead would return to Earth during this time.

The whole event was meant to help protect them from the oncoming winter. It wasn’t created to summon evil demons from Hell and release them upon the world.

Our modern Halloween has very loose ties to what the Celts originally had intended for the holiday. And those ties just keep getting looser.

What would a holiday be in our fair nation if we couldn’t profit from it?

In good ol’ American fashion, we have commercialized Halloween so much that it is now the second largest holiday in the country.

This year, with only lint in their pockets, Americans are predicted to spend six billion dollars for the holiday, on everything from candy and costumes to decor and greeting cards. 

So this year, see America’s Halloween for the consumer-driven holiday it really is. Enjoy mischief and candy knowing an unseen force won’t strike you down.

Leave your religious woes and, for my sake, your fat cousin Marsha, dressed as a scandalous genie, at home.