Well, Jacko-my-lantern and Hallo-me-ween, it's October 31st!

"Why didn't the skeleton cross the road? He didn't have the guts!" ~Cheesy Halloween joke

I love celebrating Halloween, especially the part of it I spend at BYU in the morning. When else do you see your professors wearing such things as clown wigs, black capes, and wild, funky ties? When else is it acceptable to paint whiskers on your face and wear those dumb cat-ear headbands to school? When else are there free doughnuts, apple cider, pizza, and hot chocolate all over campus? I tried to record some folkloric items with regard to the way we celebrate Halloween, and this is what I came up with:

1. Tricks

Tricks are acceptable and even desirable, perhaps even to a greater extent than on April Fool's Day. After all, the appeal of being able to play a trick while eating candy and wearing a cape and mask is not to be taken lightly. Also, consider the diversity of stock Halloween 'gotcha' sayings: there's "BOO!" "Trick or treat," a witch's cackle, a scary scream, a howling werewolf sound, "Whooooo" (owl) and "Ooooooooo," (ghost) to name a few, while the only standard prank-saying on April Fool's Day is just, well, "April Fool's." The best (fun, not mean) trick that I observed at BYU was on the fourth floor of the Joseph F. Smith Building, where some ingenious person had replaced all of the professor's names on their office doors with orange/black cards bearing the names of characters, real and fictional. Our petite, demure folklore professor got the name "Cruella DeVil." Dallin Oaks, my knowledgeable and exciting Linguistics professor from last spring, was "Lex Luthor." A few other names I remember seeing were "Judge Judy," "Darth Maul," "Sauron," "Paris Hilton," "The Wicked Witch of the West," and several actual (but dead) philosophers in the philosophy department - "Nietzsche" and "Freud" specifically. The American Studies office, where I often work, was the "Underworld Studies" office. I thought this trick was a stroke of real genius, and I hope it becomes a regular tradition, much like the cute red and white stockings put on all the professor's doors on the third floor of the JFSB in December. I think even the Halloween costumes can be seen as a type of joke; imagine someone dressing up as something completely unexpected or out of character, for instance, or something ridiculous just to make people stare and laugh because of the absurdity. Which brings me to the next item.

2. Costumes

While a few BYU students wear green on St. Patrick's Day or red/pink on St. Valentine's Day, by far the biggest "dress-up" day for all of the school year is Halloween, and it can get pretty extreme too. Everything except for masks, which are apparently evil or scary or something. A lot of my teachers dressed up, which made me smile. One wore a long black cape and gave a lecture on horror films that day. He kept playing with his cape while he was talking, and it made me want to laugh so hard. Then he showed part of "The Ring" (which I have never seen) and I was too scared to keep my eyes open for the entire clip. Another one of my teachers dressed up as a student, which was pretty daring for her, since she's usually wearing very proper, business-like attire. She was wearing blue jeans, a casual (but still rather plain and old-fashioned)shirt, and - the best part - a pair of earphones and an ipod hanging around her neck. The girl who sits in front of me in that class was dressed up as a cat, with black clothes, a headband with ears, markered-on whiskers, and maybe even a tail or something. I saw a lot of girls wearing boots and cowboy hats - it's a relatively normal, safe costume. One girl's costume really took me by surprise: She was obviously pregnant, and wearing a shirt with skeleton bones painted on it, and a little skull where the baby's head was supposedly residing. It looked...very strange. The funnest people were the ones wearing the most clothes, or the most color. I did see one scary looking "Joker" (from The Dark Knight) wandering around. And there was another guy who was wearing the entire brown, cloak and hood garb of a monk! I'm pretty sure he was also wearing a cross. And I can't remember whether or not he had shaved his hair...but I was impressed, notwithstanding. I never wear a costume to school, but did have fun fashioning one to wear after I got home. I was "Princess Mononoke" from the title character of the Hayao Miyazaki film. Anything involving strong, limber women with warpaint on their faces is a strong, definite interest for my choice of costumes on Halloween, as other members of my family can tell you.

3. Food

Specifically candy. Specifically chocolate... Our family has a special meal for Halloween dinner: grapes, hamburgers with white melted cheese (we call them "Hamburger Spooks," since we get to make faces on the white cheese with black olives, and it looks kind of like a ghost), vegetables, tortilla chips and cheese dip, and orange sherbet floats. When we were little, my mom tried a couple of varieties on the Halloween dinner, but in time we whittled it down to these essentials. Oh, and did I mention candy? We're too old to go trick or treating now, but always manage to come up with something nevertheless, from school or a church activity or whatever.

4. Movies

I don't know how it started, but we always have to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," and "The Wizard of Oz" on Halloween night. I like it, but it is starting to feel a bit tiresome (kind of like our now-gone tradition of watching "A Thanksgiving Story" by the Waltons every year; once we were able to quote the movie back to back, we decided it just wasn't worth it anymore), so I'm thinking of proposing a switch-up for next year. What does everyone think of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"? I mean, it's got songs, candy, dressed-up people, and very frightening moments (sudden interruption of happy music by appearance of creepy stranger, nightmarish boat rides, and near death by inflation, suffocation, execution, and minimization, anyone?). Just think about it, okay?