Halloween is by far the weirdest holiday ever created. Granted, Halloween has great intentions and is an awesome holiday for kids. It’s a fun way for kids to become their own heroes and trick-or-treat for candy. I don’t think that I have met anyone who doesn’t think Halloween is great for kids.

And Halloween is a huge deal in the United States. Not just in terms of spirit, but also in terms of money spent. According to the National Retail Federation, it is estimated that people spend 2.5 billion dollars on costumes annually. While that is insane, when you also factor in the decorations that people buy for their houses and the candy bought each year, the National Retail Federation also estimates, an astonishing 6.9 billion dollars are spent annually!

This makes Halloween the second biggest commercial holiday in the US behind Christmas.

It’s not the spending that’s weird to me, because people will spend money on just about anything these days–it’s what people spend it on that shocks me. For example, each year people spend all of their time and money putting up Halloween decorations knowing good and well that come November 1st, they will just have to start taking them down. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

Trick-or-treating gets a pass. It’s for the kids, and it’s one of the better parts of Halloween. I personally loved trick-or-treating when I was a kid. I would fill up a pillowcase with candy every year and eat until I puked. But if you’re over the age of seventeen and not a parent, trick-or-treating should be off limits. No exceptions.

If you’re an adult caught trick-or-treating, there needs to be a law according to which you give your candy to the nearest child and go home to reevaluate your life.

I cannot think of a single reason that an adult would need to dress up as Iron Man and knock on strangers’ doors asking for candy. I just can’t.

And people need to stop taking their costumes so seriously. Too often I’ve been in a costume shop, turned over a costume, and been astounded at the price tag. Some of these costumes cost over one hundred dollars, which is an insane amount of money to spend on something you’re only going to wear once…if that.

Yet year after year, I see people walking around in these costumes proudly exclaiming to the world, “I just wasted a whole hundred dollars so that I could be Walter White! Don’t I look great?” No, you don’t. You look like a child trapped in a man’s body, a child-man who also happens to be terrible at managing his money. I can understand that you want to look cool at your costume party, but if you have to spend $100 on your costume, you’re not succeeding, especially because I’m sure some people saw the costume you’re wearing and had the financial sense not to buy it.

And costumes are one-dimensional for women. Costumes for women are kind of like saying, “Any customer can have their car painted any color, as long as it’s black.” It’s the same for costumes on Halloween, only it reads, “A woman can be anything she wants on Halloween, as long as it’s ‘sexy.’” Each year I see hundreds of great unisex costumes all tweaked slightly so that they are “sexy” versions of what could have been a normal costume.

They have taken this “sexy” craze so far, in fact, that just this past Halloween I saw the costume “Sexy Pizza Slice.” Maybe we need to take that as a sign to pump the breaks a little.

Halloween also brings out people’s need to play pranks on their neighbors. I see houses covered in eggs and toilet paper. And I’ll admit that I’ve fallen prey to this temptation. When I was a rambunctious sixth or seventh grader, I egged a kid’s house. I wasn’t really sure why I did it or what I got out of it. When I got home I felt so terrible that I turned myself in to my dad, who had me call and apologize.

Halloween has a weird power over people. Maybe Halloween really is a haunted night. Maybe all of those stories of people being controlled by spirits are true. It would certainly explain some of the weird things that people do. Spooky!