Typically, mid-October means moms around the country are gearing up for a season of Pinterest-inspired holiday parties at school. But it’s 2020, and fun has been cancelled.
Yesterday the email came from my third-grader’s virtual-room mom: although our children attend in-person school, parents will not be permitted to send in treats for this year’s modified Halloween party. “I know,” she wrote, “we are all so sad our children can’t celebrate together this year.”
Sad? Oh I’m all kinds of sad. But sad that my kid won’t be able to shovel into her mouth yet another round of seasonally-appropriate cupcakes, cake pops, lollipops, pop rocks, and rock candy to commemorate an ancient Celtic exorcism? Nah.
In the good ol’ days, moms sat on the sofa after bedtime eating candy corn out of the bag like God intended. Now I’m supposed to toss that candy corn with Bugles and corn Chex and funnel it into personalized Halloween-themed snack bags? I’m supposed to stay up until midnight hunting down a class list so no child gets left behind in a school-sanctioned confection craze?
Maybe—maybe—in 2019 I could be convinced to turn pretzel sticks into broomsticks and Smarties into skeletons. But 2019 happened approximately six lifetimes ago, and I am a new, slightly chubbier woman. Good riddance to all the corn syrup and monoglycerides intended to make my child happy for seven-to-nine minutes before breaking, melting, or being choked on, resulting in zero net joy gains and susceptibility for Type-2 diabetes. Bad things are happening this year, but the loss of school parties (not to mention birthday parties with their planet-destroying, meltdown-inducing favor bags) isn’t one of them.
Can we all publicly agree things had gotten out of hand? I have four children. I have neither the time nor the energy to be yelled at every time I hand my toddler a clementine on which I have not drawn a jack-o-lantern face in Sharpie. One of my kids got her first Halloween-themed “treat” from her teacher back in September, and my inbox is now full of clothing brands competing for the softest Halloween one-time-use pajamas. Let’s face it, moms. This 2010s holiday hysteria was unsustainable. Something had to put an end to all this festive bullshit, and it wasn’t going to be Karen or her posse of room moms.
So it’s 2020, and this year our only option is to purchase virus-free, individually-wrapped cafeteria snacks at $4.50 a piece. I for one am relieved. Now I can spend all the time I would have spent hunting down ghost napkins becoming hysterical about election night and shopping for sweatpants online. Happy Halloween, bitches.
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About the Author
Mother of four kids and five chickens, Lindsey DeLoach Jones is a professional writer and editor in Greenville, South Carolina. Check out more of her writing on lindseydeloachjones.com and on Instagram and Twitter.