The best time of the year

My favorite time of the year is finally here: fall. And what comes with fall? Halloween, the hands-down best holiday of all.

The fact that Halloween takes place during the fall season is a reason why it’s the best. Unlike Christmas, it comes when the leaves are beautifully colored and bright, the sun is out (most days) and it’s still pleasant to be outside. While fall often has a significant amount of rain, this October is proving to be one of the most beautiful in a long time. As an Oregonian, I have zero complaints.

Some of my best memories are from Halloween: trick-or-treating with my sisters, and dressing up as matching pumpkins. Even the year I was stuck at home with chicken pox along with my oldest sister, it was still memorable because my other sister (who wasn’t sick) brought back to us our own bags of candy.

Next, there’s nothing more fun than getting scared out of your mind every day of the week. There are Halloween movies galore on TV, and this makes me very happy. As a horror movie buff, there’s no excuse not to watch one every night leading up to Halloween.

And did I mention the Halloween episodes on all the great shows? Some of my all-time favorites have been the Halloween shows. My guilty pleasure is the 1990s show “Roseanne,” and let me tell you, there is nothing better than the hilarious Halloween episodes. Recently, I picked up the boxed collection of all nine seasons’ worth, and I’m more than a little excited to watch them all this year on Oct. 31.

Halloween lovers look forward to the holiday every year, eagerly anticipating what their costume will be. While I hate to admit that I definitely don’t dress up every year, the thought of getting to be whatever I want for a day is just as exciting as when I was in elementary school.

Then, there’s candy. Clearly, candy is one of the most exciting aspects of Halloween. You have an excuse to sneakily eat all of the stuff you desire while waiting for the little munchkins to ring the doorbell in their adorable costumes. If you don’t enjoy seeing the little ones in their awesome costumes, then you don’t have a heart.

Of course, I can’t complain about pumpkin-flavored everything, either. Carving pumpkins, baking the seeds, pumpkin lattes, my famous pumpkin pancakes, and deliciously scented pumpkin candles: Because of Halloween, I can feed my pumpkin obsession to my heart’s content.

I fully acknowledge that I have and always will be riding on the pumpkin lover’s bandwagon each and every year. For instance, I’m all about that Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte, which (like all great things) comes out only in the fall.

If all this doesn’t prove this season is the absolute best, then I don’t know what does.