As department stores, costume shops, and dentistries everywhere prepare for October 31, Berkeley High School (BHS) students can only reminisce. Celebrating Halloween as a teenager is limited, and with the decision to make Decades Day the same day as Halloween, BHS students have been robbed of their opportunity to celebrate Halloween.
Being a teenager on Halloween accentuates the fact that you are between childhood and adulthood, too old to trick-or-treat but too young to take your children. Teenagers go to parties on Halloween, but when Halloween falls on a weekday, parties can be hard to come by.
Usually, teens like to dress up for Halloween at school, but the decision to replace Halloween with Decades Day during BHS Spirit Week this year has eliminated that possibility.
The theme days for Spirit Week are decided by the leadership team, and seniors on leadership get to be part of that decision, even though it is a well-known fact that seniors come up with their own spirit days. For example, instead of Pajama day on Monday, seniors have Royalty day. Seniors should not get to select the school-wide spirit days because the decisions will not apply to their class.
Teens like to dress up for Halloween, … but the decision to replace Halloween with Decades Day during BHS Spirit Week this year has eliminated that possibility.
This year, favorites like Punk vs. Prep Day have been replaced with Meme Day and Twin Day. Twin Day is widely considered to be an exclusive and awkward theme day because it requires people to group up. The biggest injustice, however, is the combination of Decades Day and Halloween.
Decades Day should have been moved to Tuesday, leaving Thursday open for students to dress up for Halloween. As high schoolers, we need things to look forward to in order to not become debilitated by the monotony of school. In years past, we have had Spirit Week with Halloween the week after, leading to October being a month full of things to look forward to. From an administrator’s point of view, this year’s setup may be convenient, as it minimizes the number of days that students will potentially be rowdy and distracted, but from a student’s perspective, the loss of Halloween is a tragedy.
So, as you look forward to October 31 and see the Beatles, hippies, jazzercisers, and Paris Hilton copycats instead of devils, cats, blood, and aliens, please mourn. BHS has killed Halloween, but if there’s anything all these years of Halloween experience have taught us, it’s that things can always come back from the dead.