Halloween Is The Great Equalizer

Holidays are always a little overwhelming — you want it to be a core memory for your kids and you want it to be magical, so you always feel a little panicked at getting it all right. When you mix in social media and all of the comparing and consuming we do through the apps during the holidays, it can really level up that stress and guilt. How can your family have a happy holiday when you see other kids going on $300 Polar Express trips and reels from parents who seem to have oodles of time for gingerbread house competitions and already bought the top-of-the-list gifts back in September?

For one thing, get off of Instagram and TikTok. It’ll help. And then: embrace Halloween. Because Halloween is the great equalizer.

Halloween just has a vintage vibe. It’s one of those holidays steeped in nostalgia, and I honestly think it’s mostly because not much has changed about the holiday in the last several decades. Sure, decorations have gotten bigger and the holiday has expanded to include more community events and not just one lone night of spooky season, but unlike Christmas — which has exploded with things like buying every single teacher in your kid’s school a gift and hosting Grinch-themed parties that cost a small fortune — Halloween has stayed mostly the same. You can go to a community Halloween event like trunk-or-treat or participate in a Halloween parade (events that are usually free to attend, by the way) or DIY a million pumpkins, but if you and your kids just trick-or-treat on Halloween night in a costume? Then you’ve done Halloween exactly right.

Because underneath the Instagram reels showing you the best way to carve a pumpkin and the only Halloween decoration you need and the trendiest costumes of the year, there is just October 31st. A day of spooky vibes, of soft orange light setting over your front yard, of holding hands with your partner as you follow your tiny Spider-Man down your neighbor’s driveway. It’s one of those few experiences — like elementary school field day or blowing out the candles on your birthday — that still feels like it did when you were a kid. And nobody’s comparing costumes or turning their nose up at each other’s pillow cases versus monogrammed treat baskets from Pottery Barn; parents are nodding at each other, laughing. Helping someone else’s little witch when they trip over the porch steps, telling each other that they love their family’s costumes.

There is so much to consider with other holidays. Even Valentine’s Day social media posts can leave you feeling flustered. (Seriously, is making every single meal into the shape of a heart necessary?) But Halloween is the great equalizer. Even if you don’t live in a neighborhood to trick-or-treat, there’s somewhere to go. Even if you haven’t watched Hocus Pocus or hosted a Halloween party, you’ve donned some sunglasses and pretended to be a “rockstar” to trick-or-treat. And nobody, and I mean nobody, is judging your kid’s DIY costume, because even if you walk out the door with an old bed sheet cut into a ghost costume, someone’s going to be delighted. You’re keeping it classic. You’re going for a good, old-fashioned Halloween.

Will one house on the street have hundreds of dollars worth of decorations? Sure. But on the big night, is anybody looking at that house and thinking the house next door with the single Jack-O’-Lantern should step it up a bit? Absolutely not, they’re just looking forward to ringing that doorbell.

Because everybody wins on Halloween.