Halloween is about to jump out from around the next corner, and I am wondering if everyone has decided what they are going to be. As for me, I am still weighing my options, but I am aiming for the cunningly creative. After all, isn’t the fun of a Halloween costume all in the imagination and innovation? At least, that is what I thought Halloween was about – until I came to college. I have always been the sweet and innocent one to the point of fault, but seriously, who knew Halloween was the holiday of whores?

Last year, I handed out candy to the little kids who came to Stanford Hall decked out in their spookiest get-ups and princess crowns.

Their joy at the simplicity of candy bars and the thrill of the haunted night was apparent in their glowing eyes and smiles, many of which were missing spaces, awaiting the arrival of new tenants. Their happiness was the source of my own – that, and the leftover chocolate.

The little ones came to South Campus relatively early, probably because it was a school night, but whatever the reason, it is a good thing they left when they did. Around 9 p.m., some of the most shocking and disturbing costumes I have ever beheld tramped their way through the halls, out the double doors, down the steps in spiky heels and into the night.

No witch or goblin or bloody chainsaw massacre costume has ever freaked me out as much as the little bunnies with cottontails, helpful nurses (hardly) dressed in the purest of colors, and black cats I saw last year did. I am sure to see them again.

I am not even going to say that these costumes are distasteful, crass and blatant tramp- stamps that are marks of transparent intentions. No, I am not going to say those things because I do not wish to be known as the judgmental one. I just want to say that I think the costumes some girls wear for Halloween are deathly boring.

Halloween is about dressing up, not hiking up. It is about putting on goofy hats and attaching hideous, hairy moles. It is about applying red lipstick to the cheeks, rather than to the lips. It is about dressing up as your favorite character or creating a character of your own. Halloween is about popping out of darkness to scare friends, though it has become a time of popping out of other places unintentionally….or could it be intentionally? These scenarios are still scary, but unnecessary. Halloween is about being creative and crafty while exercising artistic capacities. Villanova is not an artsy school, but I think, at least, I hope, there is more to our minds than mouse ears and all things mini, teeny and tiny.

Halloween is the chance to be children, and as those chances are only getting fewer and fewer, I say we take advantage of them when they come our way. Be different, be weird, be scary, be funny and, for goodness sakes, be adorable. If for no other reason, wear something rather than nothing in order to be warm because like the people who wear flip-flops in February (I used to be one of them), being so exposed when it’s cold outside just looks stupid.

I encourage everyone to test their creativity and aim for the element of surprise this Halloween, but not the girl-who-pops-out-of-a-cake kind of surprise. When the cake is that big, it is obvious. She is no surprise at all.