Even COVID can’t ruin Halloween

Bella Lee, Staff writer

To put it bluntly, Halloween is my favorite holiday.

It has been since I was very little, and it probably will be until the day I die.

From the costumes to the decorations to the mountains of candy, there’s absolutely nothing that I couldn’t be excited about when it comes to Halloween.

The first Halloween that I can remember was in kindergarten, when I dressed as a fairy princess and my mom took me around my neighborhood wearing her flight attendant outfit. Since then, I’ve dressed up for Halloween almost every year, even last year.

I was a freshman here at Mercyhurst last year, and my Intro to Public History class wanted us to wear historical outfits, so I delivered by wearing all black, wearing makeup to look like I was dirty and had boils on my face and dubbing myself the Black Plague. I even got a round of applause from my class when I gave my explanation as to why I chose my costume.

That wasn’t even the weirdest costume I’ve managed to throw together. Junior year of high school I donned my black concert dress and threw on a red scarf to become a last-minute vampire.

Sixth grade I went through a weird phase that I can’t remember now, but it resulted in me being a “Halloween gangster” for Halloween that year. Halloween is the perfect quirky holiday for a quirky person such as myself.

One of the other big reasons why I love Halloween so much is because it always brings my family together.

I remember being in second grade and I was in my school’s Halloween parade. I remember my stepmom holding my then-baby brother, dressed up as a skeleton for his first Halloween.

After the parade, many of my classmates came to me exclaiming that he was just so cute in his costume. Since then, my stepmom has handmade the majority of my younger brother’s costumes.

That same year, my older brother dressed up as a combined character named “Ben-ruto,” a combination of the title characters from the shows “Ben 10” and “Naruto.” My youngest brother wanted to be a skeleton last year, but my grandfather instead sent him one of those famous inflatable T-Rex costumes, and he became the star of the neighborhood.

Halloween isn’t just a holiday that I love. Of course, COVID has to derail my Halloween plans.

In a year that has been met with much turmoil, this was one of the only things I was looking forward to, hoping that COVID would be gone by now, but unfortunately that’s not the case.

Luckily, Mercyhurst still plans on hosting Halloween-themed events this year, such as Haunted Hurst, but they’ll be drastically different than years past in order to keep everyone safe.

This time I’ll be able to participate in Haunted Hurst, since I had to miss it last year due to previous commitments, but it won’t be like anything I’ve experienced before. Halloween will be looking very strange this year (hopefully I can still get candy), but I can only hope that things will return to normal soon and that we can all celebrate the holiday together once again.