"Retroween"? I'll Pass...

October 23, 2015

With the month of October comes the celebration of Halloween and the inevitable preparations for the holiday on October 31st. Given that I have made my love for many things vintage/retro quite clear on this blog, especially in the realm of design, one could assume that I would relish in similar aspects of the past when celebrating Halloween.

In all actuality, I don't.

I like vintage things, and I like Halloween. However, I absolutely DESPISE vintage Halloween. How can that be?

I do enjoy Halloween, but I have a love-hate relationship with it, and he reason for that has to do with the aesthetics of the holiday. In saying that, I am mostly referring to the decorations. When I was a child, I often found myself terrified of the decorations I saw when I was trick-or-treating. All I wanted to do was dress up and get candy, and I couldn't seem to be able to do that without all of these spooky decorations being shoved in my face and ruining my experience.

I recently found an entry that I had written in my 3rd grade writing journal from 2005, and I can't help but find it amusing.

Courtesy of Kathryn Muñoz

"Last night, I went trick-or-treating. This year, I was a witch, I got about 20 pounds of candy [an attempt at a hyperbole]. I didn't like so many of the decorations, especially the skeletons. I am afraid of skeletons. I said [to my mother that night] that I wished that people would decorate their house for Halloween with angels, Jesus, fountains, little children playing, and Christmas decorations?"

I don't even know what I was trying to say there. I've just always found certain aspects of Halloween to be extremely terrifying, and I find the crudeness of vintage and antique Halloween aesthetics to be nightmare fuel. From the innocence of crazy Jack-O-Lanterns (which is partially responsible for my general dislike of the pumpkin's shade of orange) and skeletons (which I find frightening in decoration form, and always seemed to be the decoration of choice in previous eras), to the downright gory and horrific, it's just not my cup of tea. 

And who could blame me? Take a look at this BuzzFeed article titled "19 Deeply Horrifying Vintage Halloween Costumes", if you dare...

WARNING: The visuals of this article will more than likely be disturbing to anyone that sees them

Bottom line, you can be as spooky on Halloween as you want. Just don't expect me to join in.

-Kathryn Muñoz