Are Halloween cliches driving YOU batty?

Today's word rant of the day naturally applies to Halloween.

Less obviously, it applies to marketing materials and mass-market publications. (Sorry about all that alliteration; at least I avoided using "magazine.")

As you all know, I ADORE Halloween, in all its kitschy wonder. I adore the spooky stuff, the mid-century graphic stuff, the costumes, the scary stories, the Knott's Berry Farm Halloween Haunt, the colors--all of it. (Okay, I could live with less lime green and purple, and I favor a renewed emphasis on the traditional black and orange with SMALL green and purple accents.) But in general, I think Halloween is the perfect holiday, and I prepare for its celebration all year.

I also read LOTS, maybe even most, of the articles published in the waiting-at-the-hair-salon magazines about it, searching for recipes, decorating ideas, new ways to haunt my house/yard, the best method for making front-yard graves, the newest innovations in cheesecloth ghosts, how to keep the !@#&*()&*)(!ed lights from tangling, and all the rest of it.

That said, if I see the words "spooktacular" or "boo-tiful" ONE MORE TIME, I'm going to get all stabby.

Seriously, can they just not help themselves? Or is it too easy for today's "journalists" (I use the term with great skepticism) to fall into facile cliches, never daring to say "We hope you'll like the way we've decorated this orange-and-black cake. We think the pumpkin designs are charming, and the bats flying over the moon give it an air of eerieness that's fun and appropriate for the holiday"? Can they just not do that? Are they SO STUPID and SO enmeshed in the manufactured non-words that they really have to fall back, year after year, on the sickening, ever-too-cutesy "spooktacular" and "bootiful" AGAIN?!?!?!

Okay, I've talked myself into it. I'm going to get all stabby. (Thanks, Tracy, for coining that word. I DID tell you I was stealing it, didn't I?)

PS: I'll be back to rant next month about "all the trimmings" and to decry the use of the turkey as a decorative object for Thanksgiving dinner.

Halloween isn't SUPPOSED to be healthy!

And another thing--what's up with "healthy Halloween treats," for God's sake?!?!?!

It's enough of a high-wire act to do the right thing (that is, the whole-grain, free-range, homemade thing) AND stay on speaking terms with your children. I've never been in the "whatever makes the kid happy" camp (I believe in making kids decent, with happiness following as an almost-inevitable consequence), but this idea that Halloween needs to be crunchy and sugarless is an abomination and must be stopped.

Can parents truly not distinguish between a life spent inhaling McNonsense with soda and ONE holiday's indulgence in a plastic pumpkin full of yummy, downmarket candies? Can you honestly look your child in the eye and say "I love you" after you've "treated" him to a whole-grain cracker topped with organic raisins and spreadable soy-based cheese? Do you honestly not have the heart, the compassion, the simple decency to toss the kid a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup after he's gone to all the trouble to terrify you with that fabulous vampire costume? Are you brutal enough to deny that little witch a handful of M&M's?

Let me tell you a story about a young girl whose mother wouldn't let her have sugary treats for YEARS. She wasn't introduced to chocolate until she was three years old, and then only through the kindly offices of a great-aunt who had not just a heart for children, but also a little common sense. She wasn't allowed to keep her Halloween candy because her mother had issues about sugar. Well, guess what. That young lady got a driver's license on her 16th birthday. THAT AFTERNOON, she moved, bag and baggage, into Carl's Junior, and she's STILL got the extra 40 pounds to prove it.

Making forbidden fruit is not the answer, folks. Hysteria about candy corn, fits of angst over a fun-sized Hershey bar, rending your garments at the very sight of a KitKat--none of these things will innoculate your kid from just plain wanting to enjoy an American celebration.

So go for it. Stifle your urges. Helicopter around about something else. But for pity's sake, toss your little goblin a d*mned candy bar.