In first year, I was fresh off the boat and I didn’t get the memo that on Halloween, people in England actually dress scarily. That’s why I am so noticeable in my 2010 Halloween photos: since I was singled out in my bright colours. Prior to coming to England, I have been more accustomed to the way Americans dress up for Halloween – like the average Otley Run/fancy dress night in Leeds. In the more extreme, glorified version of American Halloweens, let me take you back to Mean Girls when Cady discovers Halloween is ‘the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it’. I have Facebook stalked some of my friends in American Uni’s and seen some of them wearing some pretty daring outfits – if you can call baring no more than a lingerie a Halloween outfit. But it just makes more sense to make Halloween special by looking dead, bloody, and scary to set your attire apart from other (fancy dress) nights.

Halloween is the best excuse for a celebration. Last year, I was lucky enough to celebrate Halloween twice – once in Amsterdam and once in England. The party I went to in Amsterdam felt like it was the set of a B-grade horror film with the huge house, low ceiling basement, thumping monotonous music, and no word of a lie – decorations made of baby dolls. Strangeness aside, it was still highly entertaining. After jetting back to England on the Monday of Halloween, I still hadn’t recovered from Amsterdam, but went straight to a Halloween party at Stylus the day I landed anyway. In fact, that’s the great thing about celebrating Halloween over here – there are so many Halloween parties in Leeds, you could celebrate it multiple times if you wanted to. From the Friday to the actual Halloween on the Wednesday, there are so many choices. Try Mint, The Faversham, The Cockpit, Fruity, and of course, classic Halo. Halo, is of course a somewhat sacrilegious venue and even more so on Halloween when it has been condemned of being ‘pagan’ and ‘anti-Christian’ by the Vatican – but let’s not bring the Vatican into this – we’ll save that for another kind of article…The bottom line is, Halloween is awesome and you’re never too old for it. What’s not to love from pumpkin picking/destroying, bonfires, free sweets and costumes? And I guess you could count Guy Fawkes Day as part of the Halloween celebration in the UK right? The idea of burning a ‘guy’ creeps me out more than Halloween itself. Anyway, as superstition goes, if you see a spider on Halloween, a deceased love one is watching over you. So don’t be killing any lurking around the dodgy, unkempt corners of your bathroom…