It’s almost time for everyones favorite holiday: Halloween. Before we get to the spoopy day, there’s a few ground rules we need to cover.

1) If the question ‘am I too old for trick-or-treating?’ crosses your mind, then you probably already know the answer. But the good news is that there’s a 99% chance someone you know is throwing a Halloween party with tons of candy anyway. And you don’t even have to work for it!

2) Make sure you’ve seen Hocus Pocus at least once this month. Actually, make that twice. Or three times.

3) Everything that can be pumpkin flavored, must be pumpkin flavored.

4) And finally, the age old don’t be racist.

That’s probably a good ground rule for life in general, but it applies especially to Halloween costumes. If you’ve taken a look down the aisles of Party City recently, you’ve probably seen some pretty offensive stuff. Just earlier this month, a UCLA frat held a ‘Kanye Western’ themed party, which reportedly included students using blackface and dressing up as the Kardashians. Even outside of the blackface, which is not a sentence I enjoy saying, the costumes were stereotypical portrayals of black people and black culture.

I think it’s pretty obvious why blackface is a horrible thing to do (and if it isn’t, please go do some research and come back here later). But incidents like this suggest that many people don’t seem to grasp that dressing up as a member of another race for a comedic costume is offensive. There are numerous costumes marketed at Halloween that include stereotypical portrayals of ethnic minorities. They even include outfits made for kids.

Let’s all be clear on one thing: Impersonating someone else’s culture is a big no-no.

That’s right—no geishas, no Native American Chiefs, no g*psies this Halloween, please. The fact that some of these costumes even made it to production at all is astounding, but that people buy them without a second thought it even more unbelievable. Halloween is a great holiday, but not if you spend your time making fun of someone’s culture and heritage.

You know what’s a good costume idea? Where’s Waldo. That one’s a real party starter.