Hallowe'en

I don't do a lot, as an adult, for Hallowe'en. (I can't dress up today, anyway - I have a field lab this afternoon and anything remotely costumey would be uncomfortable or unsafe. I AM wearing a t-shirt with a bat on it, though).

I don't know why. I guess I always took Hallowe'en to be a kids holiday. (Don't get me wrong, here - I'm not saying you're stupid if you celebrate it or go all-out as an adult, it's just not something I do). I think part of it is I'm so busy this time of the semester - it's Midterms and it's also the time when I'm trying to wrap up research - that it just gets away from me.

I do do one thing: hand out candy to any kids who come trick or treating. I enjoy that.

Two really cute/memorable costumes from years past:

1. a very tiny little girl - probably 2 or 3 - in a homemade (really detailed - probably made by Grandma) Tweety Bird costume. So cute.

2. Two little boys, very likely twins, dressed in identical army-fatigue suits. (They were probably 6 or 7). When I gave them their candy, they stood at attention (military style!) and said, in unison, "Thank you, ma'am!" That was so cute it almost killed me.

This year, my coleader and I decided to cancel Youth Group for the week - so the younger kids could go out trick or treating and so the older kids could go to a "teen event" (a chaperoned dance) tonight. (And I have to admit I'm glad to have the chance to hand out candy. I ran out the day after we decided that and bought a big big bag of little Twix bars, and a couple bags of snack-packs of mini oreos, and a big big bag of Kit Kats. I like to give out the "good" candy - I hope these qualify as "good" in the eyes of the kids trick or treating)

One thing that bugs me? All of these places - malls and things and even, I think, the local hospital - are advertising "Come with your kids and trick or treat at our place. It is a 'safe and fun' alternative!"

Um, yeah. I'm kind of insulted by that "safe." It almost seems to imply that people's neighbors are carefully inserting pins into the Snickers bars or injecting peanut butter cups with LSD or something. I suppose in some towns, people really DON'T know their neighbors well enough, but it bugs me. It bugs me that malls and places are playing on the loss-of-trust of other people, and that they're probably figuring, "If we get the moms and dads in with the kids trick-or-treating, we will probably be able to sell them something."

As for "fun" - well, when I was a kid and saw E.T. and saw the kids trick-or-treating in the daylight, and my mom explained to me that in some communities they were worried enough about safety to do that, I thought "what a rip." I suspect there are still enough kids - or at least I hope there are still enough kids, in this bubble-wrapped society we have - who feel like "What a rip" when they go trick or treating at the mall.

Going trick or treating at night to people's houses was FUN. It was fun because it felt a teeny tiny bit naughty - you were ASKING for candy, and you were permitted to do that! And it was at night - my parents would let my brother and me go out to look at the stars, or catch fireflies, or stuff, but the rule is we had to stay in the yard (or, if we were playing flashlight tag with the kids across the street, stay in their yard). We weren't allowed to roam the neighborhood. And with trick or treating, we DID roam - we probably walked well over a mile, all the way up to the part of the neighborhood we normally never went, because it was "too far," and, except for Lisa E., neither of us had friends who lived out that way.

And you were in costume. To be out, at night, in costume, and asking for candy was pretty intoxicating to a normally rule-following child like me. It felt like I was being BAD. But it was a type of BAD I was allowed to get away with.

So, I don't know - but to me, trick or treating at a mall (or in the downtown of a town, like they do here) would feel like a very poor substitute.

And, of course, living where I live, there are people who don't like Hallowe'en. Who say it's a day for the devil. Who talk about the paganism rampant on this day.

And you know? I just shrug. Sure, there are pagan associations to the day - it's Samhain, in the old Celtic calendar - but there are also Christian associations - it's All Hallow's Eve, the day before All Saint's Day.

And the way I look at it? It's a day to laugh at what scares you. And isn't laughing at what might ordinarily scare you (like, death) something you might want to do, as a Christian?

I've also heard a few rumblings from other quarters - that it's a "wasteful" day, because of all the candy bought (all those wrappers, going to the landfill!) and the costumes - far better, they say, to make a costume out of old clothes and give out unwrapped treats (but then, that contradicts the "safe" mantra above).

I've also heard people talk about the caloric impact of this day - all that candy, all that sugar. Let the kids have a piece or two and then take the rest away from them. (But I will say I also heard a nutritionist speaking last week who said: "It's only one day out of the year. Let the kids have the candy. Kids have to have fun, sometimes." Which seems a more sane response, to me.)

I don't know. I wonder sometimes if in the future we will just have amorphous "holiday days" rather than actual, dedicated holidays, because it seems no matter what, someone gets offended by the observances.

When I was a kid in school, we got to bring out costumes to school on Hallowe'en. In the afternoon, after lunch, we changed into them, and had a parade around the school grounds. Lots of mothers would show up to take pictures (my mom has pictures of both me and my brother - I was usually some kind of animal, my brother was, depending on the year, a cowboy or a robot or a sports star or a rock star). Then we had a party - we got Hi-C punch (Hi-C punch seemed to be a fixture of school parties) and orange-frosted chocolate cupcakes and we got to be in the classrooms in our costumes. And then we went home, and after dinner, went out trick-or-treating.

It sounds like kind of a small thing, now, but it was something that loomed large in the school year - a party (we got to have 3 parties: Hallowe'en, a Christmas-but-we're-not-calling-it-that party before the Christmas break, and a Valentine's day party). It WAS a big deal - no classes in the afternoon, Hi-C punch, cupcakes, a chance to talk with your friends instead of learning about fractions or the Civil War.

I hope kids today get the chance to do that kind of stuff. I think having things to look forward to - even small things - is important. And I also think being able to enjoy and appreciate little things like being able to wear a costume in class and have a cup of Hi-C punch is also important.