Of all the holidays that require decoration, Halloween is one of the oddest
. While other holidays are happy with looking pretty or at least artistic, Halloween insists on being quirky at minimum and downright odd at full bore. Remember that posable skeleton for Halloween. It is odd. And oddly appealing.
But seriously, no other holiday grants people the opportunity to be truly strange. Easter whether you view it as secular bunny rabbits or serious religion does not induce people to wear masks and wigs.
The only real damage one can do on Christmas is to give a niece or nephew a drum set or toy piano. Even those two irritating gifts do not ask you to string bones and brains around the window frames or hang gauze in the closet for effect. They just bring parents to tears in less than 24 hours. Maybe they should be reclassified as Halloween treats?
There must be some need to reveal, at least for one brief night, all the dark and hidden ideas that no sensible being would parade in public. Certainly no one would destroy the work of house cleaning so happily as one does hanging cobwebs and pipe cleaner spiders on All Hallows Eve.
This must speak to some deep yearning that remains unfulfilled in the normal lives of the majority of human beings.
The Goth boys and girls must really resent Halloween. That one day the whole world takes on their special brand of uniqueness and it becomes normal. Perhaps they should try dressing in suits and ties for the day.
It may be that our Goth brothers and sister simply let the dark be seen in the sunshine and the rest of world hides it until October 31. Or that they tend to be a little more up front about their dark sides? Who knows?
Well who knows? But that strange posable skeleton for Halloween? Maybe no real explanation is need.