Trick-Or-Treating Is Fine And Apple Cider Is Fine, But Here Are 18 Things I Don't Like About Halloween

Decorative gourds are annoying. They're too small to carve, you can't eat them, and they serve no functional purpose. I don't know why we have them!!!

Today I am feeling extra nit-picky and have decided to take it out on Halloween. Here are 18 things about Halloween that I don't like...

If you really want to change my mind, leave a polite comment below.

1. Motion-activated decorations

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Halloween is the only time I avoid the seasonal department of Target. There I am, minding my own business with my cart full of freezer nuggets and cheese, and then I'm at the receiving end of a jump scare when a skeleton with red eyes lunges at me or a robot witch waves its arms at me when I'm walking past. No thank you.

2. Jack Skellington

Disney

Pardon my language, but Jack Skellington is an asshole. He is one of the least-likeable characters in movie history. He's self-centered, high-maintenance, and if you want to read about all of the reasons I think he sucks, I wrote a whole list a few years ago.

3. Pumpkin-flavored things

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I respect your opinion if you like pumpkin-flavored things, but since this is a list I'm writing and I could never get behind the flavor of pumpkin, I am including it. The only pumpkin I like is pumpkin pie and that falls safely into the Thanksgiving category (I also only like it if there is a higher ratio of Cool Whip to pumpkin pie). Pumpkin-anything else is firmly planted in Halloween season, thank you.

4. Candy Corn

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They taste like sweet chalk, and sometimes when they're gooey, they catch me off-guard. 0/10 would not recommend.

5. Related: Candy Pumpkins

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Candy pumpkins are like bigger candy corn. I can't imagine any person in the world going, "I wish I had a bigger and chunkier piece of candy corn because I love the taste so much." No. No, no, no.

6. Bobbing for apples

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This is less Halloween and more fall, but I can't imagine how people enjoy bobbing for apples. Who wants to dunk their head in some water to try and eat an apple with their teeth when you can just take one out of the fruit basket and it's nice and dry? Additionally, hair that's only wet around your face sounds terrible. It's a pass from me.

7. Haunted houses

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This is a total double standard. I will never go into a haunted house because fear is my least favorite emotion, but I love watching videos of people going through haunted houses and being scared. I don't personally see the allure of walking through a place where someone is 100% guaranteed to pop out of a wall and scare you. The last haunted thing I went to was when my little sister was in second grade. My family made me go through her elementary school's "haunted hallway" and that was too much for me. I just can't do it. I do, however, like the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. Maybe if more haunted houses had songs I'd be into them.

8. Cinnamon brooms

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I love the smell of cinnamon brooms, but every cinnamon broom I've purchased has shed??? Is that a normal behavior of cinnamon brooms? The little twigs of cinnamon brooms stick themselves in my carpet and it's the Halloween equivalent of the dead pine needles around my house after Christmas. This is why I'm on team cinnamon pine cones.

9. Pumpkin guts

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OK, I do like carving pumpkins. I think it's cute to have a light-up vegetable friend for a season. I think pumpkin guts are probably in my top five least-favorite textures in the world. And when they dry, they are exactly as strong as cement. Good luck getting dried pumpkin guts off of anything. I can safely say anything both squishy and stringy is gonna be a no from me.

10. Decorative gourds

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These annoy me because I 100% like to look at them but functionally don't know their purpose. You can't cook with them and they're too small to carve. I guess you just buy them to look at them? The top Google result I got when I googled "What can you do with mini gourds?" was to use them as a bowl filler. See? I just don't get it.

11. The Great Pumpkin

CBS

I love It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and watch it every year, but can't stand how everyone makes fun of Linus for believing in the Great Pumpkin and they end up being right. Nobody could've dressed in a pumpkin costume and played the Great Pumpkin for him? No. Instead, they just mock him the whole movie. It just shows what kind of friends he has.

12. Cobwebs

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I get that, like, old creepy decorations are in, but it's so weird that every other time of the year, we actively go out of our way to clear cobwebs from our house, only to add fake ones on Halloween. Fake cobwebs are also apparently bad for animals.

13. Rubber masks

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I like the concept of dressing up, and there are some masks that are quintessential to certain costumes (like superheroes). However, the rubber masks that look like Freddy Krueger or political figures I find really creepy, especially when they're extra big and, for lack of a better word, floppy. Also, I've never put one on, but it's gotta get pretty sweaty in there, right? Someone in the comments, please confirm.

14. Max from Hocus Pocus

Disney

He is consistently the worst throughout the entire movie and doesn't do his one job as a big brother of looking out after Dani. Do I hate him as much as Jack Skellington? No. I still firmly believe that he could've handled the whole situation better.

15. Pop-up halloween stores

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It's fine that Halloween stores roll into town and take the form of any defunct retail store they can, and I have nothing against the store itself. Walking through a Halloween store that used to be a Forever 21 though is so weird. Or, like, you knew this used to be an Apple display at a Best Buy, but now it's where they're keeping clown face paint. It feels like I'm in a Fallout game or something. I can't explain it.

16. Unofficial trick-or-treat hours

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This feels nitpicky, but also so does this entire list. Every year, I like handing out Halloween candy, and every year I have no idea when kids are going to start and stop coming to my house. I want OFFICIAL trick-or-treating hours so I know when I can stop answering the door and change into my pajamas. Likewise, I want to be READY when kids are, and a start and end time would help!

17. Bloody bridal dresses

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I don't know if this is just a me-thing, but all the thrift stores in my area have taken bridal dresses and covered them in fake blood for Halloween costumes. I feel like it's kind of a waste? Not only is it an amazing feeling as a bride to find a beautiful and inexpensive wedding dress at a thrift store, but I also feel like it's sad to see something that someone originally paid so much money for that may have been a sentimental piece ruined with ill-convincing fake blood.

18. Finally, caramel apples.

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Something so delicious should not be so woefully hard to eat. I wish there were, like, caramel apple bites, which I'm sure are a thing but sound like a lot of prep work.