Halloween Fallout

I hate Halloween. The only thing I like about Halloween is large volumes of candy being dumped out on my living room floor at the end of the night. I hate Halloween because I hate evil, fear, and even seemingly funny spookiness. I’ve pretty much always felt this way. But now I hate it even more because here it is the end of December, nearly 2 months since Halloween, and my three-year-old is STILL talking about it. Specifically, he will quietly whisper at random times that he sees a ghost. He’ll whisper, “I see a ghost, Mommy”. You would think this would freak me out a bit (like the little kid in Sixth Sense) but it does not. It makes me mad. Really mad. This all started because of stupid Halloween. Because Home Depot and Sam’s had giant, waving blow-up ghosts on sale for people’s front yards. He saw them, he couldn’t take his eyes off them, and of course, he asked me what they were. And I told him. I said, “Oh, that’s a ghost, it’s just pretend, it says ‘heyyyy!’.” Clearly, that didn’t help him dismiss the idea. Clearly, something other than friendly pretend ghost stuck with him as he continues to say he sees ghosts TWO months later. That season is over and so should thoughts about ghosts. This morning when he woke up he said, “In my dream I saw a ghost by that playground. It touched me. It was scary.” Ugh, II hate Halloween. I’ve tried telling him light-heartedly that ghosts aren’t real. They are pretend. I told him if he sees a ghost he can tell it to go away. My husband and I have prayed over him but honestly we don’t know what to do or say. It makes me really frustrated that our culture has such a stupid holiday that would introduce terms into my child’s vocabulary and psyche such as GHOST at the age of three. Can somebody help a sister out? How should I handle this post-Halloween fallout? I can’t make our culture change nor can I undo what’s been seen. But seriously, can the month of October and all things scary Halloween have an undo button? I'll keep the cute kid in the Thomas the Train costume, though.