Question: Is there such a thing as too much Halloween? If you just yelled “NO!” you are my kind of people. Hopefully you yelled it internally and not out loud as you walk through a parking lot or through the grocery store and scare some old lady because that might be embarrassing for you. And for those of you who are like, why would I be looking at my phone while walking through a grocery store…because we, as a society, are always looking at our phones. Just sayin’.

Moving on, we are agreed there is no such thing as too much Halloween…but for my children there might be. We put out our decorations early this year, on October 1^st to be exact. Rewind for a moment, I feel I must explain how much I LOVE Halloween. It is my favorite holiday of all time and has been since I was a kid, despite growing up in the frosty tundra of Fargo, North Dakota, and freezing my ass off trick-or-treating every year. Luckily, I grew up in an apartment building (hm, that’s not something you hear every day) where if my mom deemed the weather too gross, we simply skipped through the halls of our building (me skipping, pretty sure I’ve never seen my mother skip). Although a good back-up plan, I do not remember this being a lucrative venture, some apartment buildings just aren’t full of people handing out full size candy bars. We were lucky if they even opened their doors and offered candy. I preferred joining my friends at their houses and trick-or-treating in their neighborhoods. This was rough, because even though Halloween was my favorite, I hated being cold. One year, I dressed as an old lady, just so I could wear a heavy, thick fur coat my mom had inherited from a great aunt. But, despite the bitter cold Halloweens of my childhood, I have maintained a healthy devotion to the best holiday ever. It was never just about the candy for me, that was a perk, a bonus on top of pure awesomeness. What I really loved about it was the spookiness. I loved being freaked out by scary movies, stories, music, anything that got my adrenaline pumping.

Fast forward thirty or so years and every October I tap into my inner child (who, let’s face it, is just sitting on the surface anyway) and thoroughly enjoy the holiday. This year, it’s a bit more intense because we’ve decided to have a Halloween party. For the past eleven days we’ve had countless conversations about games, decorations, food, drinks, music, dancing, movies, everything Halloween! Each morning when I drive the 6 yo to school she insists we listen to The Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack. I am literally in heaven every morning listening to my children sing along to my favorite Halloween tunes. The other day I got all the warm and fuzzies watching our 4 yo bust out her Michael Jackson moves to “Thriller”.

But when the sun goes down, they are scared to go to bed, or they have a nightmare and end up climbing into bed with my husband and I…and our two dogs…and fat cat. Suddenly there’s not enough light in their room at night and they are convinced that monsters exist. I know, deep down, that the Adult thing to do is to be patient with them, calm their fears, and perhaps dial the whole Halloween business down a notch. Instead, I find myself saying, “Isn’t it fun to be scared?!? Maybe monsters DO exist! Hope there aren’t any under your bed! Bwahahaha!”

…Bad adults aren’t always great at parenting.