There's only about 15 minutes left in one of my favorite holidays of the year. A lot of people didn't really get to celebrate Halloween this year due to Frankenstorm's vigorous assault, either because they were in its path or were absorbed in the wake of news it left behind. To everyone personally affected by the storm, I am deeply sorry.
Real horrors like Frankenstorm we hope will only come around once in a blue moon, and with minimal impact. But there's fictional horror all year long, and for a holiday like Halloween, being festive means celebrating, or at least appreciating, the macabre. So when life goes back to normal, celebrate your own belated Halloween by enjoying a few tales of woe (hopefully) deeper than your own. (To enjoy a few juicy tidbits, check out Byliner.com's "Tales to Make Your Skin Crawl", a compilation from several different writers in different magazines across the past few years.)
Halloween is a special holiday for me. I've always loved horror films and stories, but these days, there's something even better. For me (especially since having kids), Halloween has become a sort of mini-Thanksgiving. Stay up late to watch a creepy movie I know will keep me up at night? That's okay, because it also gives me a reason to be thankful--my life is not that movie, and likely never will be. Luckily, our lives are generally filled not with weapon-wielding madmen, but with holiday realities--chubby toddlers in nylon costumes, five extra pounds of candy-induced fat, and lots of big orange pumpkins. It's why we enjoy Halloween in the first place; we get to be someone else for a day, live vicariously through someone else's eyes in a story or film, flirt with the dark side without consequence.
So enjoy those spoils of Halloween all year round if you can, and be thankful that life is not fiction!
TJ
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