It's officially October which means it's basically Halloween. Halloween in college is much different than Halloween when you're younger. Most of these differences stem from the lack of time, or lack of funds, you have in college. As a child it's easy to get a costume made or bought for you by your parents. In college, you are on your own. If you want a homemade costume it is up to you to make it. If you want to buy a pre-made costume it is up to you to come up with the money for it, and trust me - they aren’t cheap.
Plus, the candy aspect of Halloween is over the second you hit college. Instead of trick-or-treating to get free candy, you are now faced with the realization that if you want Halloween candy you’ll have to get it for yourself. And of course you’re going to buy the Halloween candy in an attempt to be festive but you know you'll just end up eating the whole bag while laying in bed.
As a kid, months of planning goes into your Halloween costume, or at least the entirety of October. Plus, you probably only have one costume. All your time and effort goes into that one masterpiece that you will wear for a few hours one night of the year. This costume is usually creative, and it’s even better if you sometimes have to explain it. One year for Halloween I was the witch that the house fell on in The Wizard Of Oz. I used eyeshadow to make bruises, wrapped my head in some gauze, walked around on crutches, and even had the striped tights to match. That costume was a stroke of genius - probably the greatest costume I will ever wear. A lot of planning went into that costume, and nowadays I’m lucky if I even make it to a Halloween store to buy the little odds and ends I need.
While yes, I’ve been thinking about my Halloween costume for this year since the last one, I am in no way prepared for it. I have a lot of ideas swirling around in my head but those are impaired by the numerous people saying “Let’s do a group costume!” This is a major difference from childhood to now: group costumes and couples costumes are everywhere. Truthfully, it’s a smart idea because you can kill two birds with one stone: cute Instagram posts and an easy way to keep track of one another.
However, the thing with college is there’s a 100 percent chance you’re going to need more than one costume. It’s just a fact. It is difficult to figure out creative costumes for just you, much less figuring it out with three or four people. With the time constraints in college the ideas that people have decided to bring to life probably came right off of Pinterest, which is why when you go to parties there are approximately 46 cats, multiple scarecrows, and a splattering of pineapples.
There is nothing wrong with being the 5th pineapple at the party; I’m just commenting on how our sense of creativity dulls when we get to college. We turn to clothes that are too tight, too big, or show too much skin and slap on cat ears, devil horns, or a halo and call it a day. We have lost our sense of childhood adventure when it comes to picking costumes. Why not shake things up and dare to do something out of the ordinary?