Heidiween: Give That Woman a Hand!

What do Halloween, a girl from Montreal, Heidi Klum and Christmas have in common?

Absolutely nothing.

But stay with me. Or don't…

I grew up in Montreal, home of the Habs, Leonard Cohen (who I met!) and fresh bagels. Oh, I miss those bagels.

Growing up Jewish (although I'm agnostic), I went to secular schools surrounded by Christmas.

And I LOVED it.

The lights! The presents! The TV specials!

Remember Christopher the Christmas Tree? Nothing says Christmas cheer like getting emotionally attached to a tree.

Or Santa Calls on YTV? Basically one giant Christmas advertisement. I watched every minute.

I even made a sad Christmas tree out of construction paper.

My mum took us to see Santa at the mall. Sweet, right?

One problem. I genuinely believed in him.

Every Christmas morning? NOTHING.

I'd met the man. Sat on his lap. Told him what I wanted.

Kid me was sad.

My parents had their own marketing campaign to distract me.

Christmas kids got ONE present.

Jewish kids got EIGHT.

EIGHT!

Then I discovered Christmas kids got more than one present.

Points for effort, though. They really wanted us to love Hanukkah.

But Halloween?

I could dress up, trick-or-treat and feel like everyone else.

Except this was Montreal. I'd plan a beautiful princess costume, and Mum would make me wear a puffer jacket and winter gloves over it.

Yeah, not quite the Cinderella look I had in mind.

Halloween is getting bigger here in Sweden. My costume this year?

Pyjamas and YouTube.

Very glamorous. Very cosy. Very little effort.

Meanwhile, Heidi Klum is out there making the rest of us look like Karen from Mean Girls.

“I'm a mouse. Duh!”

And I LOVE her for it.

A fashion-girl icon of mine who apparently wakes up every October thinking:

“You know what? I'd rather be a giant worm.”

While we're putting on mouse ears and calling it a costume, Heidi is spending months turning herself into something completely unrecognizable.

This year? A giant severed hand.

A HAND.

Imagine that planning meeting.

“Heidi, what are we thinking?”

“A hand.”

“Sorry, what?”

But how did a supermodel become the Queen of Halloween?

She started throwing Halloween parties in New York in 2000. Now people wait all year to see what she'll do next.

Most celebrities spend years making sure everyone recognizes them.

Heidi spends months making sure nobody does.

And somehow, she's become the Queen of Halloween.

She didn't sit down and invent a personal brand. She took something she genuinely loves, went completely overboard with it and kept showing up year after year.

Now Halloween is as much a part of how people know her as modelling.

That's what makes a personal brand stick. It comes from who you really are, not who you think you're supposed to be.

Although becoming a giant worm apparently helps.

Anyway, Halloween is over.

And somewhere in a freezer, Mariah Carey has just opened one eye.

Christmas is coming.