Every year, we are graced with the special day where we can dress up and you can either face your fears or run from them. There are some, however, that get an immense joy from Halloween and the nightmares that are born from it.

Halloween, for UWL Sophomore Lauren Konkol, brings up the memory of a grumpy kid who wasn’t quite pleased with the way the night turned out. “When I was six years old, I wanted to be a monarch butterfly and my mom found me the coolest costume with antennas and everything,” Konkol retold. “However, she made me put on a winter coat, so she had to drag me to go trick or treating which wasn’t normal because I love Halloween.”

UWL Senior Emmie Infante told a similar story about her grumpy brother. “Me and my three sisters dressed up as the three little pigs and my younger brother, who was a baby at that time, was the big bad wolf. However, baby big bad wolf was having a temper tantrum, so the three little pigs went trick or treating without the big bad wolf which my mother covered for in my brother’s stead.”

Kids aren’t the only ones that get to reap the benefits of the Halloween trick or treating. UWL Sophomore Leslie Zelinski retold a story involving her grandmother, “When I was younger, my siblings and I would get dressed up to go trick or treating along with my grandma who was dressed up as the Grim Reaper, which was funny because no one knew she was an adult. People ended up giving her a bunch of candy which she would always split amongst us kids.”

UWL Sophomore Billie Barron has a different background on the Halloween tradition, “When I was really little, my mom was super religious, so we weren’t allowed to celebrate Halloween. So, every Halloween we would sit in the basement, watch a movie and every hour we would get one piece of candy,” Barron recounted. “In third grade though, I asked my Dad if I could go trick or treating and he had said that he didn’t care, so now I get to enjoy trick or treating. But that first eight years, was the ‘best’.”

UWL Junior Annie Thorp shared her story of when Halloween became less appealing. “When we arrived, I was feeling pretty fly in my cowgirl outfit and I decided to investigate the haunted house, which was my first mistake. I should’ve turned back when the elevator was filled with fog, when I heard screaming, when they made me stick my hand in a cadaver (I still believe it was real). But I did not. At the sight of the first monster, I fell down, crawled into a corner, and stayed there until the workers got worried and fell out of character. This was the day I realized that Halloween is my worst nightmare.”

Halloween has different turnouts for everyone. How about for you? Would you face your fears, or would you run like crazy?