Halloween still a time for fun

It’s almost Halloween. It’s that one day of the year when ghosts, goblins and witches appear in grocery store lines and tiny fairies visit your doorstep in the arms of their fathers. It’s the one day of the year when a miniature Power Ranger might race up your front steps, while a shy Winnie the Pooh holds back, patiently awaiting a honey treat.

During my childhood, Halloween was a big deal. I would spend hours wondering what I was going to “be” this year, and how I was going to make my costume. There was the excitement of costume parades during our school party and going trick-or-treating after dark.

I know the older people enjoyed seeing who (or what) was standing on their front porches, by their “oohs” and “ahhs.” They played the game, giving a frightened yelp when confronted with a small werewolf, devil or ghost; or giving a smile to the angels, princesses and Little Bo Peeps, before handing them a piece of candy or gum.

Back then, we all knew the game – and it wasn’t anything about Satanism or pagan worship – it was just good, old-fashioned American fun. We would run up to a door, ring the doorbell and yell “trick-or-treat” when someone opened the door. We crisscrossed neighborhood streets, lugging an increasingly heavy pillowcase full of candy, until the dark or the cold drove us home.

There, Mom and Dad waited for us with hot cider, cake doughnuts and tales of who had visited while we were gone. The biggest problem arising from Halloween back then was getting sick from eating too much candy.

Halloween got a little scarier in the 1970s when tales of ground-up glass, poison and even razor blades hidden in candy began to surface. Although mostly unfounded, these tales caused parents to warn their children not to trust anybody, including the nice neighborhood ladies who spent their Halloween afternoons baking cookies or making popcorn balls. Their Halloween treats were immediately tossed and parents lugged their kids and their hauls of candy down to the local fire station to be searched with metal detectors.

Suddenly children could no longer trick-or-treat alone and homemade treats were tossed. During the years I raised my children, we followed those rules. My husband would head off with the kids after a dinner of sloppy joes, cake doughnuts and apple cider. I would stay home and greet the trick-or-treaters. Our boys would dump their candy and all would be checked, albeit a little haphazardly, before they were allowed to eat away.

A few years ago, Halloween became even scarier when some religious folks began to demand we no longer celebrate the holiday because it had pagan- or satanic-based origins. Suddenly all Halloween activities were under attack by a vociferous few. Giving in to their demands, many schools and other institutions replaced Halloween parties with fall festivals or autumn celebrations. Many of us began to feel we were doing something decidedly un-Christian if we attended a Halloween party or even bought our grandchildren a Halloween costume.

Happily, that trend peaked and the truth that Halloween is simply a beloved folk holiday based on fun, has prevailed. Today most Americans celebrate the day in some way. Many celebrate traditionally, letting their children go trick-or-treating, visiting a haunted house, or enjoying parties complete with costumes, black cat cookies, and bobbing for apples. Others choose to celebrate in more nontraditional ways like collecting for the United Nations Children’s Relief Fund, distributing religious tracts or holding alternative parties.

The truth is some positive changes have come out of the Halloween scares of the past. Children’s safety is now a major concern. Costumes are safer and Halloween has become more of a family event with parents accompanying their kids while trick-or-treating, or taking them to some of the newer trick-or-treating venues like shopping malls, churches or schools, where indoor trick-or-treating is offered. The newest trend, trunk-or-treating, where neighbors meet in a parking lot and hand out candy from the trunk of their car is also catching hold.

These days, there are few things I enjoy more than opening the door on Halloween – just knowing there is an excited little kid standing out there, impatiently waiting to yell “trick-or-treat” is fun for me. I enjoy them all: firemen, Cinderellas, witches, monsters, lady bugs, lions and clowns. I even enjoy the older kids, all grown up, but still wanting to play, maybe just pulling a hoodie over their head, donning a horrifying mask or grotesquely hairy hands and saying “trick-or-treat.” What fun.