Lost Holiday
 

Hey everyone, Well Halloween is comming up soon and I find as the years go on my "holiday spirit" grows smaller and smaller. It's not that I still don't love it, as a matter of fact I wait all year for it. The trees changing color, leaves falling, the days growing darker, the feeling of fun and supersition in the brisk autum air, and the fun of being engulfed in the overall mood of the day. It seems like people don't care anymore. I remember when I was younger, every house had it's lights on with decorations and candy ready. Halloween episodes of my favorite shows would play all day, and if we had school on that day (and most of the time we did) they would not have homework and have a fun spook house in the gym. Now were pretty much the only house who decorates, 80 percent of the town shuts off their lights and there is a curfew(which I can understand) I've noticed this a little with other holidays but not nearly as bad. I guess what I'm getting at is...well Are things the same and I'm different or is it just this area or maybe is it that this holiday fading into the new mainstream culture of modern america?

Sadly enough, my family (extended family) only takes their children to small groups of houses (either family or close friends) just too many bad news stories out there to trust people :(

-Will

I've heard maybe one or two stories of problems that didn't turn out to be urban legends. Am I missing something?

I love an opportunity to wear a costume. This year I'm going to be a Konoha kunoichi. Just need to order my chuunin vest, headband, and sandals. I'm going to be playing in an ultimate frisbee tournament that day, so I figure going as a ninja is a good choice, and it will allow me to stay warm!

Plus, orange and black are my school colors. We have our own holiday! Halloween will always be warmly celebrated here. Plus, I celebrate Samhain on the actual day, as part of my connection with the cycles of the earth.

Halloween...yea, it's the devil's day and no one should celebrate it...yadda, yadda.

As a teacher, I have this argument every year...now I just don't have the energy for it so I do nothing halloweeny and it's sad. I've already had a parent writing me concerned because her daughter drew a jack o'lantern. People are too crazy sometimes.

As for me, I have my outfit ready and waiting for a Halloween party. I love those things. And as I type this I look out my window and see my neighbors black and orange lit up porch with cobwebs and spooky items hanging all around.

What I find funny is that people say it's an evil holiday. However, it's All Hallow's Eve meaning that the evil spirits are being scared away to make it safe for the saints on November 1. So maybe, the evil people are the ones that don't want Halloween...

At least half of the homes in my small town do something for Halloween. I know many kids get driven to the nearby busier town to trick-or-treat at businesses. We don't get a great number of trick-or-treaters at my house unless I really dress it up. We are on a dark street, and there aren't many homes on my block. And my house has fields on 3 sides, so it's a bit of a walk.

This year I plan to get my Christmas decorations up outside for Halloween. And I'll dress up as Mrs. Claus. I've seen Christmas displays already up in a couple of stores (ever since school started!) so I should be able to get ahold of some candy canes to give out. I did that at work one year, and replaced my nametag with a "Mrs. Claus" nametag. People seemed to get a kick out of it.

You're missing the fact that parents are big pussies nowadays, because these 'candy poisoners' are just so insanely, insanely rare.

However, kids being kidnapped while trick or treating is a quite valid threat. Cured quite easily by going with them =o

Back in Toronto, Halloween is a big thing in my neighbourhood.

I am always fascinated by tales of religious folks getting their panties in a bunch about things like Halloween or Harry Potter.

Literal interpretations shows a lack of imagination. People need to stop looking at the map and start looking around at where they are...

Yes, you're not one of the news sheeple. You know, the people who believe everything they see on the news like sheep. :)

Speaking of sheeple, that reminds me that I was planning on messing with the religious nutbags downtown this year... I still don't even have my costume idea yet.

I have not had a decent Halloween in a decade. I have always either been sick, hospitalized, burned out and/or fatigued, overloaded with responsibilities, or wrought with misfortunate timing that I sometimes miss the entire day altogether. :(

I think it all started when I tempted the fates by going as Batman every single year.

For one thing, you're not a child anymore and you're old enough to see the commercialization and greed of the holiday.

As you age Halloween has different meanings.

As a young child, it's pretty magical: choosing a costume, staying out late at night, buckets full of candy...

As an older child, the candy begins to take precedence and the night's meaning revolves around aquisition.

Finally, as a young teenager you don't look so cute in a costume anymore so you don't get a good reception trick or treating. Perhaps you're drawn to the "scarier" and gorier costumes. The innocence and magic of the holiday is gone and you're too wrapped up in teenage nihilism anyways.

Then, in college, there's a resurgence when you discover the "Adult" halloween party. You can push your character farther than before: Girls wear revealing outfits and guys experiment with drag. Everyone is drunk and hedonistic and you feel you're connecting with the Holiday's true pagan roots.

And then you're out of college and it's all been done before and you're in a serious relationship so there's no need to flaunt your sexuality and you have to work the next day and candy makes you fat and the only real spectre on Halloween is rampant consumerism.

Perhaps it ends there and that's where you are.

Now that our son is old enough to Trick or Treat, the holiday is born anew and we're having lots of fun creating our own traditions and taking lots of pictures. It's fun again.

I used to love Halloween, meant lots of parties, Oingo Boingo Concert, Knott's Scary Farm...

and then I got older and just don't have the time nor energy to do these things. Also, I'm more about the nostalgia of recapturing those better years than making new ones that have new meaning that is important to me now.

In my part of the world, it seems that Halloween is being edged out by Christmas. We had Xmas decorations up for sale 2 weeks ago, but not a single Halloween item.

If I had my way, Halloween would be celebrated with vigor, and Xmas would be skipped every other year. As it is, we are now being exposed to Xmas for nearly a quarter of the year, which to me is commercialism at it's extreme. Sad considering the nature of the holiday.

A lot of the churches in our area have a sort of "safe" trick or treat tailgate party where all of the parents bring candy and hand it out in their cars. Lame, if you ask me.

Since I didn't get to celebrate Halloween in any form as a child, I love it now. Maybe I'm a big kid, but I love looking at the costumes with my son, I love decorating my house up, and I love going trick or treating with him. Thankfully, there are plenty of houses here that don't participate in the tailgate parties and we've never had a problem getting a full bucket of poison-free candy by the end of the night.

As for others besides me...fresnelly, I think you hit on some very interesting points. I have friends without kids who don't care for the holiday anymore. Perhaps that will change if they decide to have children.

Be sure to fill the candy bowls, just in case!

Enchantment, like so many things of an emotional nature comes from within.

Give candy to the kids, because they clearly need it. Put layers in their lives as comforters. We really don't, any of us, know what we're doing.

Besides, Halloween is fun.

i think it's regional. i've lived some places where EVERYONE gets in on the action, and other places where it's not like it used to be.

overall though, the holiday has changed. now there are kids who don't dress up, they just come to the door in their school clothes, you ask them what they are and they say "rapper." it's turned into a day to get free candy. the reason for the holiday seems to have taken a back seat. it saddens me.

we still decorate the house, have the spooky music on, carve the pumkin, all that. cause halloween is my FAVORITE holiday EVER!!!!!

Well, I can't really say I miss Halloween. I hated the costumes, I hated the trick-or-treating (I blame a miserly neighbor who would give us five pennies instead of candy), and when I was growing up, it was just a nightmarish time for me. Cars that would get egged randomly, little kids who were jumped by older kids for their candy. Plus, it's not a work holiday. I think I'm starting to become the grumpy old guy that nobody wants to ring the doorbell on. But I don't mind. I'm like the Eberneezer Scrooge of Halloween.

That was an excellent post. I am feeling and have felt every step of what you described.

They call it 'trunk or treat' in our town, and it is at the intermediate school. The part that makes it cool is the effort people put into decorating their car trunks - most of the adults do a really good job of themeing.

We take our son to that, as well as through our condo complex.

Not necessarily, I personally don't know if most of the things my family mentioned happened or not. I do know, however, that none of them deem the chance of ANY of these being true, any less than the other, so they'd all rather make sure the kids come home safe at the end of the day, than risk it. Sad indeed, but it works. Personally, I remember roaming around town, in a cape and boots, with a pumpkin shaped bucket, trick-or-treating till I couldn't talk anymore, and eating more candy than I ever should have.

Good times...

-Will

I seem to have these ideas in my mind of the trees an amber yellow and dark red, with pumpkins on vines in gardens and bonfires and dressing up in costumes. Going door to door getting candy from the neighbors that were all dressed up as well. Candy corn and decorations abound. Haunted Houses and hayrides, carving pumpkins and a slight chill and excitement in the air. It's like my first bike, my first dog, every childhood memory that I still valiantly cling to...

Then I realize that those aren't my memories. I don't know where they came from, the most likely cause is television, and this saddens me deeply. I feel robbed.