Halloween is not the best holiday. It’s full of terrifying creatures, and it is inferior to other holidays in nearly every way. This is one half of a dueling column about the holiday.

Editor’s note: This is one half of a dueling column. Read the other half explaining why Halloween is the best.

As a full disclaimer, I do see some enjoyment to Halloween, but not much. I don’t like it when things jump out at me, and no amount of fandom/pop culture-related reasons can make me love the holiday. I simply am not fit to handle the terrifying aspects of it, but I don’t think I’m alone. I am a grade “A” scaredy-cat, and I pridefully now celebrate the holiday by counting the hours until November 1. Last year I started playing Michael Bublé’s Christmas album the moment the clock stroked midnight.

I didn’t realize how much I hated the holiday until I started really doing some inner soul-searching and came up with a few reasons. Here’s the thing, Halloween is very much a subjective holiday. It’s a preference if you like the scary and paranormal or the idea of being someone else for the night.

Halloween doesn’t have the magic of December’s holidays. It’s about blood and guts and gore, the twisted and sadistic. Can’t you get enough of that year-round on The Walking Dead and American Horror Story?

The entertainment is unnecessarily disturbing.

As with most of Halloween’s elements, what you like to watch around this time of year is fairly subjective. Do you like slasher, horror, or thriller films? You’ll probably love October 31. But if you’re like me, and prefer to err on the comedian side of entertainment, it doesn’t really seem like a significant holiday.

On Boy Meets World there is a now-iconic Halloween episode, season 4’s “And Then There Was Shawn” that spoofs the popular ’90s movie series, Scream. Alas, I, of pre-teen mind and unsound logical reasoning, did not understand the concept of a ‘spoof’ and to this day, I have never seen the full episode. My little sister told me that the entire episode is a dream, but I always chickened out when Shawn gets stabbed with the pencil.

I was creeped out by Disney’s Hocus Pocus, and was scared of Harry Potter for far too long (three-headed dog? No thanks. Disclaimer: I was also afraid of one-headed dogs until I was about 13). There is definitely a market for horror films such as Annabelle or Paranormal Activity, but the thrill and suspense of being scared out of your wits just isn’t something I ever really understood.

The food isn’t that great, compared to other holidays.

The food – if you can call it that – is pretty good, but not Thanksgiving, Christmas or Yum Kippur-level good. It’s all sugar! To a kid, it’s heaven. Especially if you have a little sister you can barter with to get the better candies. But by the time you’re maybe 17 or so, you have the purchasing power to buy yourself a bag of candy whenever you want.

This day in age, we’re all about the Pumpkin Spice Lattes, and pumpkin-flavored pastries by October 1, so there’s a little more variety, but the sentiment remains. Plus, how can you eat all this candy today (Halloween), knowing tomorrow, the world will become a magical peppermint-flavored wonderland, with Starbucks holiday cups and holiday parties being planned.

The costumes are more entertaining to look at than wear.

Alright, we know the discussions that surround Halloween costumes, particularly the over-sexualization of certain outfits and all that jazz, but some people can really get into it – maybe a little too much. For one night, people spend too much money and too much time invested in what/who they’re going to be. That being said, it is enjoyable to see the elaborate and clever costumes people can come up with.

Thankfully, there are some alternatives to celebrating Halloween.

If you don’t like celebrating the holiday for whatever reason, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy the autumnal season.

Watch films like When Harry Met Sally and other fall-centric movies. Like Christmas has Love Actually, autumn has its own enjoyable movies. Of course, there’s also the Halloween-themed television episodes too: The Office‘s season 8, episode 5, “Spooked,” and How I Met Your Mother‘s season 1, episode 6, “Slutty Pumpkin,” are stand-outs.
 
Eat pumpkin-flavored things. Despite my above claim that Halloween food is basically a sugar coma waiting to happen, our society’s obsession with pumpkins isn’t all terrible. It’s being incorporated into more than just cookies and candy now, there’s pumpkin bread, roasted pumpkin seeds, pumpkin pie. Yum. and a plethora of easy recipes available online, thanks to Pinterest.
 
Brace yourself. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 comes out next month. There are nine weeks until Christmas (eight until Hanukkah!). Before you know it, it’s 2015 and we’re settling into our theater seats for The Avengers: Age of Ultron.

I’m not saying Halloween is a bad holiday. I’m just saying it’s not as good as any other holiday. But, to each their own.

What are you views on Halloween?

Let me know in the comments! And if you disagree with everything I’ve said, then you’ll want to check out the other half of this dueling column, “Why Halloween is the Best“.