Where is the Halloween I Remember?

When I was a kid, Halloween was simple and fun. It was more the quality of the holiday instead of the quantity of things you do.

My mom chose and made our costumes. My brother was always a pirate. I was a butterfly (before you could buy the wings on every corner. Mom was cutting edge I tell ya). I was also an old lady and a baby doll. The kids' whose moms' bought their costumes had a plastic mask with an elastic string and the costume part was basically like a big plastic body bib. There weren’t built in foam muscles, nothing 3D, no belts, no blinking lights or special effects. 

If I dared to suggest what my boys Quinn, 2, and Ethan, 6, should wear or, God forbid we, make their costumes. I am read the riot act. Seriously? It really makes me question my parenting style sometimes-okay, a lot of the time.

When I was a kid, we always trick or treated on Halloween no matter what. It wasn’t even a question. We used pillow cases (100 thread count because that’s all that they sold bedding-wise way back when) to get our candy because there weren’t aisles of different Halloween buckets to choose from. People actually left their porch light on and were excited at the arrival of little trick or treaters oh-ing and ah-ing over the creative costumes. You had to go to a door, ring a bell and yell, “Trick or Treat” to get candy. Now all you have to do is go to a parking lot, walk from car-to-car and grab candy out of a bucket. No wearing your $40 costume to school for a Halloween party and school parade. 

Of course, it doesn’t help that when we go shopping in August the Halloween costumes are displayed and there are pumpkins, skeletons and witches everywhere. We've had a “Halloween” experience about 30 times and still have two weeks to go. Plus, the costumes get cooler and cooler every year. I get the fact that trick or treating on a Friday or Saturday night prior to Halloween is a great advantage for the kids because they can stay up late and get all cracked out on sugar, but on the other hand, I have a problem celebrating holidays on other days because it kind of takes away the “holiDAY” of it. Why not go trick or treating in September when it might not be cold, while we are at it let's celebrate Christmas on the third Sunday in December after 6 p.m. so retail stores don’t have to close.

The scene from the movie ET-when it’s almost sunset and kids are running through the neighborhood in homemade costumes trick or treating-is the best visual of what Halloween should be, in my opinion. It’s real, simple, untainted and fun! Let’s not forget the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and waiting for that one night that it’s played during the year. My kids have no interest. For real, it’s like playing Atari instead of Wii for them. Soooo sad. Don’t even get me started on carving pumpkins and how that has become a crazy art of beauty instead of geometrically ghoulish. And yes, I know that Scrooge is a Christmas character and not a Halloween costume. It's just me being nostalgic of a childhood that I loved, and I hope that my kids look back as adults and feel the same way.