My husband’s Halloween obsession is giving me the creeps

It starts as summer ends – the costume and party-planning, the stockpiling of ‘candy’, the cobweb cut-outs – even our kids can’t bear it

We live in Middle England but every October my husband carries on like an American teenager, counting down the days to Halloween. No matter that we Brits don’t observe October 31 like our American cousins, and for many of us it’s a bit of a non-event, my husband has become totally immersed in all things Halloween. 
Discussions about what we’ll do “this year” begin months before autumn starts. I used to think my husband was referring to Christmas but, to him, Halloween is the bigger festival. He spends more on decorations than we do at Christmas and his costume discussions begin in earnest just as the kids go back to school in September.
As he strings up pretend cobwebs and bat cut-outs around the house, I try not to gawp. This is a man who has to be persuaded to get a Christmas tree on December 18 and resists hanging up festive lights until he is press-ganged into it by the whole family. 
He goes the whole hog: stockpiling themed “candy” as soon as it appears in the shops. He gets dressed up, even donning face paint. And last year he spent nigh-on £50 on pumpkins.
We had a tense couple of weeks last October as he replaced our daughter’s bedtime story with ghostly tales to get her into the spooky spirit. This backfired. Any effort he went to in the hope of encouraging her to appreciate Halloween like he does was wasted. Instead, I resembled the walking dead myself after I had several broken nights of sleep and a sobbing 8-year-old to contend with. Ghost stories are very much off the agenda this year.
I have managed to swerve my husband’s suggestion that we host a Halloween get-together this year. With Halloween falling in half-term, I breathed a sigh of relief and was able to put my husband off a party, explaining that so many of our friends would be away. That could well be true. So, for one year at least, I’m spared the “fun” of apple-bobbing in our kitchen and a house full of overexcited children high on sugar, but I’m sure I’ll need a new excuse next year. 
I have stopped wondering what our friends and neighbours must think as they glimpse an adult male gleefully joining all the little trick-or-treaters while the other parents reluctantly trudge around in coats and boots. 
Instead, I volunteer to stay at home in the shadows and dole out sweets to any children who call round while he rushes out to enjoy the Halloween spirit. I almost feel a bit sorry for him. He’s oblivious to this, but our children aren’t even that fussed. They’ll half-heartedly dress up, but are becoming less enthusiastic as each year passes. If it’s raining on October 31 they’d prefer to stay in on their XBoxes instead of trailing around the streets in damp costumes.
I have kept a lid on my personal feelings about Halloween up to now, but I really dislike the idea of sending our kids out on a dark night to harass strangers for sweets. It goes against everything else we usually teach them during the rest of the year. The “horror” aspect of Halloween isn’t my thing, and I don’t particularly want half a ton of sugary sweets in our cupboards either.
I feel a bit like a killjoy but watching a 45-year-old man leap about dressed like a vampire is bordering on the ridiculous. Bring on November when the ghosts and ghouls disappear and my grown-up husband hopefully returns. 
Read last week’s Marriage Diaries