Reflecting on Celebrating My First Halloween

Hello October! Spooky Season has finally arrived! My Halloween costume for this year will definitely outdo what I went as last year. The most popular costumes for 2026 include characters from Toy Story 5, Wednesday Addams, and Bluey. Halloween has always been influenced by pop culture. In this story, I'll share a story about celebrating my first Halloween and how I ended up loving this spooky day. But first, a bit of a background about me and my love for Halloween.

As a young boy growing up in Texas in the 1990s, I've always looked forward to Halloween at school every year. We would have Halloween parties in our class, where people brought snacks, candy, and other goodies for others to consume. That decade every October was a great time to be a kid. The next question you might be wondering was did I dress up for Halloween? The answer to that was no and it was because of the response that my now estranged parents told me and my younger siblings: They "didn't believe in it." I never knew what they meant by that odd and strange reasoning until I was a lot older. In other words, due to their religious beliefs, celebrating Halloween was seen as demonic. I never understood what religion had to do with Halloween, but many people who don't observe this day due to religious convictions, which I can understand, felt the same way as my estranged parents did. Oh, there's one more thing about this part of the story I left out. I remember one Halloween, a couple of trick or treaters knocked on our door. My mother answered the door and instead of her saying that she didn't have any candy to give away, she was very rude to those kids and shut the door in their faces. Rude. She could've handled the situation a lot more respectfully.

Fast forward to Halloween 2010: I'm a student at a Job Corps center in Arkansas. At the time, I was 22 years old and lived on campus. There was a party at the gym scheduled for that night and everyone was invited. A few days before this, I went to my local Walmart and picked out a youth XL Superman costume that surprising fit my slim frame I had. For context, I weighed 115 pounds. The night of the party finally arrived, and I wore my costume to show it off to everyone. I was having the time of my life and danced the night away. There was a costume contest for the best three costumes. The top prize was $50, second place $25, and third $15. Guess who took the top prize? Yours truly. That was my very first costume contest win and since then, I've won multiple contests as different characters. In 2024, I went as Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson. I won my company-wide costume contest that year and followed it up with another victory last Halloween. I knew took the top prize last year for my Angel in the Outfield costume but couldn't recall where I placed for my Reggie Jackson costume. I'll have links to DIYs of both costumes down below.

Reggie Jackson Cosplay DIY | Lifehack

Halloween 2025 Belongs to the Angels | Lifehack

I'll be celebrating my 17th Halloween as an adult. Yes, I've been dressing up for Halloween for nearly two decades. Since that Halloween night over 15 years ago, I've since gained a bigger appreciation and love for the holiday. Halloween has no age limit, and no one should be shamed for dressing up as whoever or whatever you want. To the ones who tell us to "grow up" are the ones who have never experienced Halloween themselves. Ignore the haters and dress up anyway. I'm nearing 40 and will continue to dress up for this day every year. If doing that makes me childish to them, then so be it. I really don't give a damn.

Halloween 2026 Will Be Bananas...B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Sorry, I couldn't help myself. If you understood the reference, congratulations. In case you missed reading one of my recent stories, I'll be dressing up as a Savannah Banana for Halloween this year. In case you aren't familiar with the Savannah Bananas, they're like the baseball version of The Harlem Globetrotters. This will be the third consecutive year I'll be sticking with the baseball theme as I aim to win my third straight costume contest at work. I'll do a full reveal on here and my social media pages later, but everyone will love it.