I really, really love Halloween. As a kid who didn’t get to eat much candy the rest of the year, it was like… hedonism itself. I would panic and fuss about costumes, and made myself some pretty terrible ones. Yes, I was that teenager wearing face paint and an inner tube, hoping it passed for “alien.” I was going to be Carmen Miranda one year and hand-sewed two pieces of fruit from scrap fabric but ended up tying a bandana on my head and saying I was a gypsy… or maybe a pirate.
Point is: I do not begrudge bad costumes. We don’t all got time for that.
I trick-or-treated until I was 18. My first year of college I convinced my community service club to do “charity trick or treat” and we went down Fairmount, discovering that rich people don’t get many trick-or-treaters, but were happy when we said we wanted canned goods for the food bank.
The next year we dressed up and went to the hospital. The next year… I was told “no one wants to do trick-or-treat again! Stop you’re twenty!”
I tried to organize trick-or-treat in the dorm. I bought candy and put on a costume. Why was that not a hit?
Leaving college, I had to resort to more desperate tactics. I asked every kid-having adult I knew if I could borrow their kid and trick-or-treat with them. Thank goodness my little sister was so much younger than me! But I think I ruined it by being more into it than she was, and having a more elaborate costume. (Memo to prospectives: never outshine the kid.)
Then my niece Jennifer came to live with us! Oh it has been a happy three years of helping her plan her costume and get it together and chaperoning her and other kids! Some adults even gave ME candy. And you know I didn’t say no! “A little something for the chaperone! It’s so cold!” I used my coat pockets in lieu of a treat bag and got two stuffed pockets! And lots of compliments on my (carefully not too fancy) costumes. I was Drusilla from Buffy, complete with a Miss Edith doll, and a haunted doll last year, and I don’t even remember what I did the first year. It was awesome, though. I’m sure of that.
This year, my niece has declared that at 15, she would rather stay home and give out candy.
…
I guess… not everyone feels the same about… things… that you won’t be allowed to do EVER AGAIN except okay I’ve managed to trick-or-treat about twenty times since turning nineteen… so maybe it’s not the rare precious never-returnable heaven I make it out to be.
It’s almost intangible, how precious trick-or-treating is. I love walking through the neighborhood with children running around. I love the crunch of leaves underfoot and the warm door lights and the costumes, oh especially the janky homemade costumes. I see you, boy who drew on a box and went as a game console! You too, tinfoil space girl! All the desperately cool teens going as vague celebrities. Count this year’s most popular costume. I’m predicting Captain Marvel.
I love the bad weather and the good. I love the front-yard bonfires some people have on cold years. The decorations! The jack-o-lanterns of varied skill and imagination! The people who really go to town with flashing lights and sound machines! THE CANDY.
I mean… I really, really love candy.
Happy Halloween!
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