The days are growing shorter, and the nights are longer and somehow darker and spookier. This can only mean that it’s Halloween season.

A burning question that’s occupying many children’s minds at this time of year is: who or what should I be for Halloween?

The options are infinite from traditional monsters or ghouls to imaginary characters such as Barbie or a teenaged mutant ninja turtle to someone from a fantastical fairytale such as Taylor Swift or Travis Kelce.

I normally do my best to ignore the latest cultural trends, but the romantic saga of Tay Tay and Travis has attained critical mass and is now inescapable.

Our son and his family live in Kansas City. They of course are Chiefs fans — I think this is required by municipal ordinances — so my wife and I also had to become Chiefs fans. This wasn’t a problem as we previously hadn’t been fans of any particular football team.

I realized one recent Sunday afternoon that my wife had become a deeply passionate Chiefs devotee when I heard her exclaim, “That was pass interference! Is the ref blind? Somebody get that man a white cane!”

I hadn’t heard her speak with such extreme emotion since that time she was walking barefoot across the living room and stepped on a Lego block.

When the Tay Tay and Travis story came to light, the entire universe was set ablaze with astronomical levels of news snippets and speculation.

Was Taylor really going to attend the game?

Does this mean that she and Travis are, as we used to say, “going steady?”

And most importantly, where you can purchase merch to commemorate this match made in the tabloids?

Color me cynical, but I couldn’t help but think that a romance involving a pro football god and a music industry goddess might have been cooked up by a shrewd PR firm. My wife and I recently dined at a lunch counter and asked our twenty-something server what she thought of the Taylor/ Kelce situation.

“Taylor and Travis’s relationship is definitely real,” she said, adding that she is a huge Swift fan. “I think they have been secretly dating for a while and finally decided that it was time to go public.”

Ah, yes. Nothing says “forbidden love” like being forced to follow the edicts of your multimillion-dollar public relations juggernaut.

All of this is to say that it would be easy for any youngster who wants to go trick-or-treating as Travis Kelce. They would simply need to obtain a red jersey with the number 87 emblazoned on it and would be ready for the annual autumn candy harvest.

Young Swifties could go as Taylor by wearing something that’s fluffy and feminine and sparkly. Perhaps an outfit similar to what Glinda wore in the “Wizard of Oz.”

Dressing up as a celebrity for Halloween wasn’t much of an option when I was a youngster. For instance, it was never cool for a kid to go trick-or-treating while carrying a violin and wearing eyeglasses that have thick black frames. As popular as Jack Benny may have been, no kid wanted to be accused of looking like him.

Many of our Halloween costumes were created by raiding the linen closet. Each October, sheets were repurposed into ghost costumes and pillowcases were requisitioned for use as candy bags. Had your mom chosen to go with mint-colored bedlinens, you could explain that you were a seasick pirate ghost.

Our family had a long tradition of carving jack-o’-lanterns. This might seem benign until you consider that we were so poor that we had only one kitchen knife, a butchering tool with a razor-sharp ten-inch blade. It’s a miracle that none of my siblings or I suffered a cut or an amputation. All those parental lectures about knife safety must have sunk in.

The first cut into the pumpkin is the deepest. After eviscerating the victim – a grisly task that fit perfectly with the spirit of Halloween – eyes, nose and a broken-tooth grin were installed.

Due to the width of the knife’s blade, all the facial features we created were either square or triangular. Circles or swirls were out of the question.

A lit birthday candle would be installed in the jack-o’-lantern. Even though our carving skills were rudimentary, the effect was still pretty scary. Our creations were set out on the lawn; after the frost had ravaged them a few times, their faces began to contort and become even more gruesome.

Our toddler grandson could go trick-or-treating as Patrick Mahomes by simply donning the red number 15 jersey that he wears while watching the Chiefs play. And so could my wife.

— Jerry’s book, Dear County Agent Guy, is available at http://Workman.com and in bookstores nationwide.