Ah, Halloween—a holiday where quirkiness is currency, and you’re encouraged to be both bold and bizarre. So, naturally, I suited up for work today as a “good witch,” complete with a purple costume and a grin as wide as a jack-o’-lantern’s. If you haven’t done a Zoom call with a hat and a wand, are you really living? 

There’s something exhilarating about bringing Halloween to the office, where everyone can let loose a little, ditching spreadsheets and PowerPoints for witch hats and werewolf howls. All day, I floated around (OK, maybe more like sashayed) with the “good witch” vibes, feeling magical and just a touch mischievous. And trust me, work feels a lot different when you’re doing it in purple satin sleeves and sparkles.

But my Halloween wasn’t over after the office fun. Oh no. I took the quirkiness up a notch in the evening with a “blaze” of 1,000 pumpkins. Yes, one thousand pumpkins! There they were, carved and glowing, each with its own personality—a bizarrely beautiful display that could only come from the odd magic of Halloween.

As I wandered the blaze with goblins, ghosts, and gourds, I thought about how Halloween is this annual excuse to indulge in the weird and wonderful, to suspend the ordinary and step into something a little… otherworldly. I’m already plotting next year’s costume! But for now, I’m basking in the afterglow of a Halloween well-spent—with enough pumpkin-lit memories to keep me warm until next October.