In a couple of days, the small person in our house will go trick-or-treating for the first time. I trust he won't be terrified.
Halloween has lost some of its creepiness as more and more people have turned it into the year's second-biggest excuse to decorate their homes (Christmas being the first). I'm still amazed at the light displays and inflatable pumpkins, ghosts, witches, etc., I see as I drive around my town.
In my own trick-or-treating days, I'd go from house to house with one of my big brothers, taking care not to go to the scary ones. Like the house where an ancient man, known for his bone-rattling cough, would sit on his porch all day and sneer at passersby. Or the one where the lady of the house was rumored to be insane.
Later in the evening, vandals would come out and go on a pumpkin-smashing spree. One unusually balmy Halloween night found my brothers and me sitting on our front porch, eating candy and guarding our pumpkins long after the street had grown quiet. Unlike some neighbors' pumpkins, ours would live to see another day.
Now I live on a country road where the worst Halloween vandalism we've ever experienced was the time someone turned our pumpkin upside down. And though we don't get many trick-or-treaters out here, we still plan to stock up on miniature candy bars and carve a pumpkin.
On Saturday evening, we'll set our pumpkin out on the front stoop, light the candle inside it -- and trust that no one will sneak up when we're not looking and turn it upside down.
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That seems like a typical trick-or-treating movie scene to me. Back when I was 5-10 years old I never got the chance to do that. Maybe my family wasn't so enthusiastic about it, but I never recall going from house to house chanting, "Halloween, trick-or-treat...". Now I must say I do enjoy when small kids look all funny and cute with their halloween costumes. They are without doubt adorable.
ReplyDeleteI love living in the country, but this time of year I miss seeing those little people in costume racing down the street with their parents struggling to keep up. Some years we've gotten a handful of trick-or-treaters. Last year we didn't get any. That didn't stop me from picking up a bag of peanut butter cups the other day, though. Just in case.
ReplyDeleteBack in my day, my mom would make us learn a little song or something that we'd have to do for people before we got our candy.
ReplyDeleteWe lived in the country too, so our trick-or-treating consisted mainly of getting in the car and driving to the 5-8 houses on our road. "City" Halloween is a mystery to me.
BTW ... what will Dominic's first Halloween costume be? We want photos!
ReplyDeleteUntil my six were all teens, we would drive into town for trick or treating. A friend always had a party and the fathers would take the kids out while the moms stayed back and handed out candy. Now, I just hang out as even my "baby" is not trick or treating this year.
ReplyDeleteIf all goes well, grandson Dominic will be transformed into a puppy with floppy ears and an equally floppy tail. At the tender age of 3, he'll make his trick-or-treating debut later today -- if it isn't raining and if all that sneezing he's been doing doesn't turn out to be the start of a cold.
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