Trick or Treat: New York's Version Will Keep You Guessing

You know when a festival is just on ONE day but it feels like it's being celebrated for an entire WEEK after being talked about for over a MONTH? Multiple parties, lunches, dinners, and events around the same theme, Instagram feed flooded with reels and posts with the same four songs, everyone making endless plans and none at the same time (I know it doesn't make a lot of sense but you get it??? You probably do because the title of the blog gives away what I am gonna blabber about this time :))) 

HALLOWEEN!!! 🎃👻🧛🏻‍♂️🍁🦇 or as normal people would say: Halloween. 

Halloween, Hallow's Eve, Halloweekend, Halloweek, call it what you want, babe! My first Halloween in New York City was my first time celebrating Halloween EVER!! So I gave myself permission to be over-excited for it :)) Up until last year, Halloween for me just involved remembering all the 'Halloween Heist' episodes from Brooklyn 99, watching THE ONE WITH THE HALLOWEEN PARTY (from FRIENDS,) and playing videos of virtual walks through pumpkin patches in NYC. I didn't know how BIG of a deal it actually was before coming to NYC. And boy is Halloween in NYC something!!!!! 

About two months ago, while I was out grocery shopping and had taken a different route than usual to go to my usual grocery store (Trader Joe's FTW!), I skipped a left turn and ended up at 'THE PARTY STORE.' Brain went: something new - must explore! So like all the stores in upper Manhattan, this one welcomed me with an escalator going a level below the ground level. And boy was there A whole new world waiting for me! And the first display to catch my attention was the fall decor section 🍁, Mind you, Summer had no plans of leaving NYC this year, so Fall had to have a lot of patience before it could announce its arrival. But, but, but, the stores were all prepared to welcome it. And so, on a random Thursday afternoon, standing in the middle of the fall decor section, I spotted a row of skeletons, accompanied by a bunch of witch costumes. And this time my brain went: skull💀 - horror - warm colors - fall 🍂- pumpkin - hollow pumpkin - face carved on hollow pumpkin🎃 - ... - hallow... Halloween?!?!?! And when the realization dawned upon me, the excitement took form. A huge grin followed by a squeal startled the people around me (okay, startled my one friend next to me but yeah.)

Between that day and this last week, which I'll refer to as ✨Halloweek✨ henceforth, every Halloween and fall decor display ended up as a picture on my phone. Even though I had NO idea or plans for Halloweek, I was excited to just be in a place where everyone was preparing to celebrate it. And guess what?? I got NOT one, but THREE chances to dive into the Spooky experience (and by spooky I do not mean the horrors of grad school :'))

Friday, two weeks before Halloweek, in the middle of midterms, some great minds organized a social gathering themed around Halloween. The over-excited kid in me had extensive plans of smashing the midterm and then getting smashed at the Halloween social (well, not literally but smashing the dance floor for sure!) Turns out, the midterm smashed the kid and the kid ended up gulping down her sorrow with coffee in a corner. 

Attempt no. 01: unsuccessful.

Friday, four days before Halloween, the kid was a part of organizing a Halloween lunch. Friday Morning excitement level: low. Starts dressing up, and spots a flannel. The flannel is in fall colors. Fall is the season of Gilmore Girls. Luke wears flannels in Gilmore Girls. Brain: hmmm... can we.... try and pretend we have an outfit for Halloween?.. like wear the flannel and get some coffee (as if I need a reason) and serve people coffee (lucky because lunch was from Pret)? ... can do that!! And so, I ended up going to the lunch as Luke and had The best time of my life! Mind you, it was 1989 TV release day and I was desperate to share my excitement with someone so I ended up taking control of the music system and played all my favorite Taylor songs! Friday afternoon excitement level, without anything being even close to spooky: HIGH! 

Attempt no. 02: successful.

Tuesday, THE day of Halloween, I almost forgot it was Halloween. Woke up with a cold feeling this is going to be "one of those bad days." Got dressed (against my will) to go to campus and left my apartment in a grumpy mood. Crossed two streets and saw a witch with candy, sitting outside the corner departmental store. Hmm...noicee!!  Brain hasn't figured it out yet. Walked two more streets and was just about to cross the road when I spotted two little kids dressed up as Buzz Lightyear and Woody from Toy Story. And suddenly, my brain goes: wait a minute?? (checks phone) it's HALLOWEEN today?!!!! Can not be sad today. Must cheer self!! How did I do that? I opened up my notes app and started making, well, notes of ALL the different costumes I saw on the streets that day. (sooooo funnn!) 

And to help with the must-cheer self-plan, a few friends from work suggested we go see the NYC Village Halloween Parade. And as much as my brain tried to get me to say NO, I couldn't not experience my first Halloween in NYC the way it's supposed to be experienced. So I said, fudge it, fudge the assignments, fudge being grumpy, we are going to the parade!!! And so, we left in a bunch, from 166 Broadway, in the subway, watching Tiggers and 'Anime character covered in a blanket' get on and off the subway accompanied by 'astronauts,' till we 'excited kids' got down at Canal street to follow the parade (after stopping for Pizza of course because, come on, coming all the way to downtown Manhattan and NOT having pizza is illegal!)

And followed did we the parade!! Let me tell you something. When it comes to dressing up and showing up for Halloween, New Yorkers DO NOT MESS AROUND!! The efforts!! The enthusiasm!! The range!! The ideas!! The costumes!! The expressions!! The 'staying in character'!! All of it was pure  ✨perfection.✨ My vocabulary was reduced to "Dudeeee!!!", "do you see thisss???" and "ohh man!!! this is sooo amazing!!" I'm pretty sure I was behaving like an annoying tourist, eying for the barricade to take pictures as if it was a concert and someone famous was about to start singing Welcome to New York. But the joy that the parade filled me with was worth all the judgments! And as I came back to campus, I forgot how I had started the day!

Attempt no. 03: super successful!

Are you seeing what I'm seeing? Three days, each started with me expecting it to go one way but it decided to go 'or another.' On one, I rise and shine determined to socialize and dance the night away but end up crying in a cool way. On another, I wake up with the "I'm so done" attitude, ready to book a flight to go back home, but end up experiencing the festive and lively spirit of this city and going to sleep thinking "Man I never wanna leave this place!" And come to think of it, all my days here can be classified into these two extremes! "How my day is gonna go?" is a question I can not answer with certainty at the beginning of each day. But "Is it going to go the way you think it's going to go?" can definitely be answered with a NO. And 9 out of 10 times, it ends up being true.

Unpredictable - that is how I would describe my days here after being in this city for exactly 3 months now. For someone who likes to always be "in the know," this can get scary. So in a way, New York City is making me experience "the spooky" every single day. (ha!!! made my way back to the topic of Halloween somehow after drifting away from it 😭) To answer your question of "What exactly are you trying to say??", I'd say "That's uncertain too. I wanted to write a light-hearted, fun blog on Halloween in NYC, but ended up writing whatever this is." And frankly, that is okay. I might hate this rn but who knows, it might just end up being one of my finest pieces (it's not. let me be delusional though. I need a winnnn 😭)

I'm sensing I should end this now. So I'll donexactly that. I'll leave you with this: there are a few songs and references in this blog. See if you can find some. Until next time (whenever that is)!!

~ vee 🗽