Picture this: it’s 2007, and you dressed up as a witch after you finally reached the age to go trick-or-treating with your older siblings. Oh, the good old days—when our biggest worries consisted of finding houses with king-sized candy bars and whether we were going to use a pillowcase or bucket to hold our candy. Now, Halloween seems to just be stressful. 

Once you pass the age of trick-or-treating, Halloween not only loses its purpose but its enjoyment. The planning that goes into one night is absurd. I have found it best to plan my costume in advance, searching for a trendy yet unique costume. While I scroll through the rejected costumes on Amazon Prime, I find it hard not to reminisce about the early 2000s when everything was easier. And I mean everything. 

I begin thinking about Halloween when the calendar changes from September to October. Plenty of time, right? Wrong. While to me, those 30 days should be more than enough time to find a costume, I can assure you they are not. The trends for Halloween change so fast, and my Pinterest board has a hard time keeping up.

It seems that Halloween parties are either at a surplus or a shortage, never in between. I either am turning down offers or, after finally finding the perfect costume, I end up with no place to show my costume off. 

Even if I am lucky enough to have a plan set in stone, there is always the added pressure to have fun. While a party should be naturally fun, there tends to be a little bit of stress to make sure you feel that way. On Halloween, that stress escalates tenfold. 

With the rise of social media, any major holiday is the perfect excuse to post your enviable, picture-perfect moments. Halloween checks off all the boxes for the perfect Instagram post: NSFW costumes and a quirky Halloween caption.      

Let’s not forget about the awkward yet inevitable moment when someone asks you to identify her costume and you draw a blank. I’ve definitely been there. I am standing there, staring at their costume that resembles nothing, and she looks at me, hurt, because I don’t understand the costume that she spent so much time and money on. 

While I believe Halloween is stressful, I am not saying that I am against the holiday. I just think that we all need to tone down the stress. It’s supposed to be fun, after all!