Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. It’s the one day of the year when you can wear whatever you want without risk of the fashion police.

It’s the one day when you gain approval for looking goofy or ugly. It’s the one day during the year when you are encouraged to not act like yourself.

Some of my favorite costumes include Princess Leia from Star Wars, complete with big brown braids; a she-devil with bright red tail and a cave woman in a leopard-skin dress.

Dressing up in poorly-made polyester clothes from Wal-Mart and trick-or-treating are the traditions we embrace on Oct. 31.

But since Sept. 11, life in America has been altered.

Everyone seems to be on a heightened state of alert. We were shocked when we saw two airplanes fly into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But after those days of disbelief, the public is still awaiting another mass airplane terrorist attack.

Through rumors and e-mails, people across the nation are beginning to question this year’s pumpkin-carving celebration.

Some are thinking that after the attacks, Halloween just shouldn’t happen this year.

One especially harsh columnist, Kevin Horrigan for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, criticized the ghostly holiday in his editorial “A holiday we can do without.”

He wrote “Halloween is a festival of the dead. Some festival. We’ve had lots of real dead people lately . Substituting patriotic costumes – Uncle Sam, the Statue of Liberty, Dick Cheney (yes, Dick Cheney masks are hot) – doesn’t help much. It’s still phony and still morbid . `But kids love Halloween.’ Tough. It’s a great time to teach them about sacrifice.”

Obviously Horrigan doesn’t have a six-year-old dressed up as Tinkerbell ready to collect her candy supply for a year waiting at home.

And this uptight, never-had-a-cool-costume columnist isn’t the only one that thinks the American public should overlook Oct. 31.

Mall officials across the country are canceling Halloween parties or closing the stores for the holiday. At least three mall operators – Urban Retail Properties, with 63 malls; Bloomfield Hills, Michigan-based Taubman Centers, which owns 31 malls; and Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc., with 145 malls – have decided to not host Halloween events.

And two shopping malls in Iowa, Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville and Mall of the Bluffs in Council Bluffs said the activities were “inappropriate in light of recent national events.”

But President George W. Bush has told the country to move on with their lives.

By canceling Halloween activities for children, mall officials are refusing to let life return to normal.

This country needs to celebrate Halloween. For this day we can put our energies into creating costumes and spending time with friends.

For one day, we can distance ourselves from the terrorist attacks.

What better way to attempt to return to normalcy than with a costume party?

Just because we are celebrating Halloween doesn’t mean we can forget that the United States is engaged in a war on terrorism.

This remembrance can be expressed in the very Halloween costumes the public is wearing.

This year, Lady Liberty, Uncle Sam and other patriotic outfits are popular.

Take this opportunity to express patriotism with a flag costume or dressing up as President Bush, complete with Texas T-shirt, cowboy hat and goofy grin.

We can’t live our lives in fear. We can’t have our children grow up in a society of fear.

This is the kind of fear the terrorists who caused the Sept. 11 attacks want Americans to live in.

Halloween needs to go on this year, without a change. Because if we do change our traditions, then the terrorists have just won another battle.

And this time, they didn’t even have to fly a plane to do it.

Michelle Kann is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Garnavillo. She is the newsroom managing editor.