I love Halloween. Completely unironically. What other time of year offers you both grisly movies where unsuspecting tourists get their heads razor-wired off, and the wholesome cuteness of toddlers in pumpkin costumes? “But it’s an American thing.” So is the microwave, the aeroplane, the zip and Beyoncé, and you’re fine with all of those. “But it’s a made-up festival.” I hate to break it to you, but they all are. I’m here to tell you that Halloween is better than Christmas – allow me to plead my case.
‘I need to finish my Halloween shopping’ isn’t a thing
Halloween shopping is entirely optional and hugely frivolous. There’s not much danger of overspending, either – there are only so many joke spiders, sour Maoams and bottles of fake blood you can buy. Christmas gift buying is both mandatory and high pressure, involving three weeks of panic-buying things that are soon-to-be landfill, sacrificing three full evenings to build a flat-pack doll-house, and waiting in for Evri, the Halley’s Comet of delivery services. And then all the gifts that everyone else buys you are shit.
The world doesn’t shut down
At worst, Halloween disrupts your evening with the odd doorbell ring from an unconvincing werewolf demanding a fun-size pack of Maltesers. Christmas makes the world shut down for a fortnight, minimum. Last year, I received my first festive out-of-office on 25 November. (An editor at a publishing house, if you’re in the market for a particularly slack job.)
No relatives
I love my extended family as much as the next man, but many a Christmas has been killed by spending too much time with people you spend the rest of the year avoiding. Unless your surname is Addams or Munster, it’s highly unlikely your grandmother will descend upon you for a week of apple-bobbing and Haribo-gorging.
Everyone gets to dress up
Halloween is the most fashion-forward festival. At Christmas, the only one allowed to play dress-up is Santa Claus. Wearing an ugly jumper with a quote from Die Hard on it hardly counts. At Halloween, everyone gets a crack at the creepy catwalk. My recent party outfits include a half-embalmed Egyptian mummy, a zombie-bite victim and a secretary of state for health. Guess which one terrified my children the most?
The food is better
Romanticise Christmas dinner all you like – it’s just a roast dinner with 72 hours of prep. There’s much more to Halloween grub than a bucketful of refined sugar. Punch full of jelly eyeballs, skull cakes oozing raspberry blood from their nasal cavities and mozzarella sticks formed into amputated hands, to name just a few Kay staples. You’re honestly telling me you prefer parsnips and bread sauce?
No forced fun
Dare to let your mile-wide grin droop over Christmas and you’ll be immediately labelled a scrooge. If it’s been a tough year, you’re forced to do what every mental health professional tells you not to, and push your problems into a little box and pretend that everything is SIMPLY MARVELLOUS. Halloween is the holiday that miserable people can truly get behind. Want to hide at home with the lights off? Dress up as Dracula and scare the life out of trick-or-treaters? Scream at the top of your lungs in a graveyard? Be my ghost.
Better movies
Christmas movies are cheesy, formulaic, and sicklier than a 2kg tin of Quality Street. Every single one has a happy ending and an Important Moral Message. Halloween has range – everything from The Shining and A Nightmare on Elm Street to camp classics like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Witches of Eastwick, something for all ages and all strengths of stomach. It’s no coincidence that the only good Christmas story, A Christmas Carol (and Muppet variations thereof) is packed with ghosts and graves.
Better music
If you think that “Merry Xmas Everybody” is a good song, I’m afraid you’ve gaslit yourself. I raise you “Monster Mash,” “Superstition,” “I Put a Spell on You” and “Werewolves of London”.
No comedown
Christmas is two months of build-up for a five-hour anticlimax. Boxing Day involves waking up bloated, impoverished and with the realisation that you’ll soon have to spend a full day de-festiving your house then pay your tax return. On 1 November you still have everything to live for. Chuck the pumpkin in the food waste bin, eat the remaining mini Snickers for breakfast, and it’s only four days until Bonfire Night.
Better variety
Will I plant Bluetooth speakers all over the house and play ear-piercing screams and rattling chains? Will I tie thread onto a bunch of soft toys and play puppet master to convince my kids their teddies have come alive? Will I dress the dog in a tarantula outfit? Who knows. But I do know that Christmas is the same every single year: same turkey, same trimmings, same tree.
Members of the jury, I put to you that Christmas is an exhausting, expensive obligation. Halloween is pure escapism that asks nothing of you in return. So this week, grab some fangs, drape your front door in synthetic cobwebs and leave Christmas to the priests and the posties.
This week I have been…
Listening. As anyone who’s puzzled over the terms and conditions of a gym membership can attest, the legal world is fairly light on laughs. Thank goodness for Judge John Hodgman, my new favourite podcast. The entirely unqualified Hodgman’s quest is to settle the kind of petty disputes which would never trouble the High Court but can be deal breakers in your personal life. Is it acceptable to flush soup down the toilet? To take clippings from plants in a shopping mall? There are over 800 such cases lined up for you, should you want to listen non-stop for the next five weeks.
Donating. The death of my friend Theo Burrell earlier this year at the age of 39 was a devastating loss for her husband, young son and all who knew her. Best known as an expert on Antiques Roadshow, Theo was given a terminal glioblastoma diagnosis four years ago and didn’t waste a second of the time she had left. She devoted herself to campaigning for Brain Tumour Research, raising awareness of this cruel condition, which kills more people under the age of 40 than any other cancer, and raising funds for the charity’s vital research. If you’d like to join me in donating, head to braintumourresearch.org
Quizzing. I’m currently knee-deep in the gore of yore, finalising my spooky new live show for kids (and parents who need to find things to do over half-term). It’s called Kay’s Gruesome Games and it will possess the Leicester Square Theatre on 24 and 25 October, and 1 November. Based on my book of the same name, it’s inspired by the weird, wacky, and wildly dangerous history of medicine. Like the doctor who drank the vomit of patients with yellow fever to find out if it’s contagious (it is), why you might need a snot transplant (chronic sinus inflammation), and if strapping a dead mole to your head could cure a headache (it couldn’t). Featuring me, live illustrations from Henry Paker and the word “poo” about 400 times.
Kay’s Gruesome Games by Adam Kay, illustrated by Henry Paker is out now from Puffin. Visit adamkay.co.uk for live show information including his new UK wide show This is Going to Hurt: 10 Year Anniversary Special running March-June 2027.
