Happy Halloween!
Halloween was my favorite holiday, bar none, as a child.
The main reason was probably the candy. But the secondary reason—and maybe it even superseded the candy, come to think of it—was the opportunity even as a little kid to get dressed up in a costume and go out with other kids at dark, prowling around the neighborhood and ringing doorbells.
Alone, no adults present after we attained the age of 4 or 5.
Those days are gone. And not just for me—since I’m not a kid anymore—but for kids these days. Everyone under thirteen has an adult escort or escorts.
But it’s still a lot of fun to see the kids in their costumes, especially the little ones.
You know what other days are gone? My candy corn days. Usually at Halloween I put up a post on candy corn, a favorite seasonal treat of mine (at least, I try to keep it only seasonal). But I’ve had to add candy corn to my list of forbidden foods because it now has started to give me migraines, as do chocolate, peanuts (no Reeses for me!), figs (not too hard to cut out), blue cheese, and raisins.
But Happy Halloween anyway!
Another thing that is different: we devised our own costumes. No store- bought Frozen princesses. we were ghosts, made out of an old sheet, witches done similarly with a hat, and my brother was often a cowboy with his pepped up toy guns and a cowboy hat. There were no parents. At best the older kids looked after their very young siblings.
BTW, I was in the US during October, and was not thinking well enough to comment, although I read everyone here every day. Give me a day or so to get over the jet lag, and I’ll share some experiences of being back home.
Oh No! No Blue Cheese. Don’t much of it but do like it occasionally.
It was my favorite holiday too. Ran around with a pillow case. We got candy apples and popcorn balls and of course full size candy bars. Simpler time.
expat:
Another thing that is different: we devised our own costumes. No store- bought Frozen princesses.
My mother was a genius at devising Halloween costumes. My sister went one year as Abraham Lincoln, complete with beard, stovepipe beaver fur hat, and black coat. I went one year as a Brownie (folklore), which in part involved my mother’s dying long underwear brown.
At the town Halloween party, a classmate won a prize one year as a cave man. It was a good costume. I was teed off when he wore the same costume the next year and also won a prize.
It’s definitely culture shock for me to go to a Wal-Mart and see rows of Halloween costumes.
The last time I wore a costume was when I was working in Argentina, for a dance during Carnival. I went as a hippie. Didn’t require a big change in costume. 🙂
Argentina was then under a military regime. Police switched towns during Carnival to insure that cops didn’t know anyone, and did an ID sweep at the dance. Hundreds of us went to jail- who takes an ID with a Carnival costume? I was able to get word out to the staff house. A fellow employee brought my passport to the police station, and I was let out. That was was, as far as I knew- and I knew quite a few people in the town- also the experience of everyone else caught up in the Carnival dance ID sweep. I didn’t hear of anyone not getting out.
That was the only time I went without ID when in Argentina. VS Naipaul, in his masterful New York Review articles on Argentina, wrote at being caught at the Jujuy/Salta provincial line without a passport. He had left his passport in his hotel room in Salta, about an hour and a half away. That was rather naive on his part. He eventually got let go.
When I got too old, according to my father’s decree, to go out trick or treating, I helped my mother make popcorn and put it in little waxed paper bags. Now homemade treats are forbidden.
! CANDY CORN RULES ! [ sorry about the migraines; take care ]
I’m not sure what it says about me, and were I to speak with a psychiatrist, that person would likely have a field day analyzing me, but: I hate Halloween. And I hate it because of the costumes.
I hate dressing up in costumes and by the time I was 8 years old, I managed to convince my parents to let me stay home on Halloween. I always hated it but before that, my parents just got me dressed up like all the other kids and dragged me out*.
The thing is, for reasons I cannot adequately explain, costumes make my skin crawl. Being dressed in a costume makes my skin crawl. Even thinking about dressing in a costume makes my skin crawl. Being around people in costumes makes my skin crawl. So, Halloween parties? Out. Giving my wife a hug if dresses up to go to work in a costume? Nope.
And it’s not just Halloween. I would beg my grade school teachers to either exempt me from school plays or, at the least, let me be some kind stage hand.
*And it didn’t help that I have always been more of a salty food person than a sweets person. I’d take salt and vinegar Pringle’s over candy any day of the week.
While I admit to roaming the neighborhood sans parental supervision as a child, either Hubs or I accompanied our kids, usually taking the dog with us (because it was easier than having her try to escape every time the door opened). I’m not sure why we went along, but it was a social thing. We’d go with family friends and hang out on the sidewalk while our children went to the door. This was so common in our neighborhood that one house handed out cans of soda for the kids and beer for the parents! 🙂
In my neighborhood, we have a lot of “temps” from India. Their company has sent them to the US to learn American ways so that when they go back to India to work in the back office support they will have a better understanding of how Americans work.
Well, most of the holidays I don’t interact with them much; but, for Halloween, some of the mothers so get into the spirit of dressing up that they dress up their kids and themselves! Nothing ghoulish or anything like that. There have been so many princesses, butterflies, etc. coming to my door – and those are the mothers of the ones too little to even walk! So glad they enjoy the spirit of Halloween.
In Austin, Halloween is a HUGE holiday. Maybe even more than the major religious holidays. My adult son who is very thin went to a party dressed as a Qtip which I thought was very original.
There were store bought costumes when I was young, but never at our house. Some, of course, were made, but many were improvised.
Then, we had our costume box for playing all year.
I went as a shark tonight, in a big shark head, and gray sweats. i stopped at a Kwik Trip convenience store, to get a slice of pizza, and when I was checking out, the clerk told me never thought that he would look out from his cash register, and see a Great White Shark patiently waiting for a slice of 4 meat pizza.
Back in my deputy days, I would always prowl the streets of villages too small to have a PD, just to show the flag, and keep the cars moving slowly. Little kids who are excited run without thinking.
My Queen & I are at our Spring & Fall ‘go to’ place in the Great Smoky Mtns of western N. Carolina
and bought a great wood-crate sign in black & orange with sparkling block letters, reading:
WITCHIE, WITCHIE
SCREAMIE, SCREAMIE
HAPPY, HAPPY HALLOWEENIE !!
Love it!!
Some of the older Neo commenters will remember why we carried a bar of soap with us. And sometimes a few eggs. And moving night.
When I lived in a townhouse development there were families with young kids who walked with them trick or treating so the neighbors without kids handed out candy to the kids and beer or wine to the parents. Everybody had fun.