The Halloween Boycott

That's right.  The Shannons are Halloween boycotters.  I know.  Party poopers.  Let me assure you before we get praise/flack for all the wrong reasons, this has absolutely nothing to do with any spiritual implications the holiday may or may not assume.  In a few short words to sum it up, my kid simply HATES it.

She hates dressing up. The fact that:

1. She has to decide who she'd like to dress up as gives her extreme anxiety

2. After a decision has been reached (which it never has before) she has to then wear said costume beginning a downward spiral of identity issues too mature for a three year old to comprehend. (But I'm NOOOTTTT Elsa, I'm ELLIE! How can I be both?????? How????? WAHHHHHHH, insert meltdown.

I have given up on the whole idea that perhaps if I just put a costume on her she'll realize it's fun, that all of her friends are doing it, that's it a parental right of passage to dress your child in something incredibly ridiculous to forever immortalize their mortification to then store away and resurface during family parties held with new, peach-fuzzed boyfriends.

I won't make her do it.

Not even just to take pictures.

Not even to go the neighbors to get candy.

So, instead of attending her school's little Halloween parade where all of her classmates will be cloaked in various shades of Spiderman singing songs about talking jack'o lanterns (which she finds equally as disturbing as the costumes), we will be making French Toast at home, watching Sofia the First, twirling in tutus that no one will get to see and later on she will be partake in the only thing redeemable about Halloween:

"Eating all the chocolate with my Pop!"