The scariest time of the year will soon be replaced with the yummiest. Talk around the dorms is no longer the wacky plans of the coming weekend, but the excitement of going home (a few for the first time this year) and even the dread of being bombarded with questions about college.

The fun decorations that come with Halloween are scary and exciting: skeletons, bats, tombstones and… pilgrims? Here lately, the big turkey has overshadowed Halloween.

Thanksgiving has its place—don’t get me wrong. Sharing and being thankful for what we have been afforded is a great tradition. But it seems lately that kids today don’t get the same experience we did: picking out costumes among the plentiful racks at stores, watching scary movies and days of binging on candy after the big day. They see instead decorations being taken down before the big day in place of shoes with buckles and fancy hats and muskets.

Doing this emphasizes swift changes, making the year go by so quickly for adults and kids alike. Some stores have even suggested launching Black Friday sales into late October—meaning Halloween. In the name of making a quick buck, stores have seemingly debunked the sanctity that is Halloween.

The prescription? Take back our holiday! Enjoy your candy. Sift through the costumes left on the racks. Try those masks on. Leave the cobwebs and ghosts up in the yard. This is the time for mysticism and wonder, when magic and heroes can be real and you can enjoy a period of goofiness before a more somber time of the year.

The pumpkin pie will come. But the candy? It’s here now.