In the run-up to St Valentine’s Day I warn Himself that he’s to do nothing to mark it (and to not expect anything from me either). At Christmas I stage a one-woman picket outside my mother’s house, parading up and down with a placard that says, “You’d swear we never got fed the rest of the year.” And even though these days the St Patrick’s Day parade is meant to be actually good, I still refuse to go, in case I meet tourists who expect me to behave Irish-ly.
I’m agin any occasion that insists on rigidly codified behaviour… Except for Halloween. Halloween is different. I LOVE Halloween!
I “go out” with my nephews, The Redzers (7 and 9), who live on an estate awash with nippers. Everyone, even the non-nippers, dresses up and I swear to God, most of the houses could win prizes for their – yes! – I’m going to call them “installations”! Spooky music, cackling witches sitting in trees, silhouettes of zombies advancing across upstairs bedrooms…
The calibre of “treats” is high – not an apple or nut in sight. Instead, sizeable pieces of confectionery from recognisable brands rain down into the pumpkin-shaped buckets.
All in all, there’s an attractively anarchic feel to the night. Maybe because people are disguised – that, in combination with limitless sugar, is a recipe for letting go.
But there’s another reason I love Halloween. Confession time: I have barely-dormant goth tendencies and Halloween is the one night of the year I can brazenly step out in sparkly green eyeshadow.
My current wild enthusiasm is for Urban Decay’s Moondust range of shadows (“Microfine bits of iridescent sparkle collide with 3-D metallics.”) The green is called Zodiac and if you buy it, they’ll probably try to flog you a setting spray to intensify the pigment. For once it’s not a swizz.
(PS: They have 23 other colours for non-Halloween times of the year.)
