Halloween seems to have lost all its wonderful qualities in the last 40 or so years, and that makes it hard to really enjoy it. Despite having a grandchild to go trick-or-treating with, who loves it probably as much as I ever did when I was a kid, I can’t help but remember what it was like when I was a kid.
I never liked caramel apples, popcorn balls or bobbing for apples. Still, I miss them all in a weird way. I don’t actually want them, but I want them to be there. Like the smell of thousands of pumpkins being burnt by real fire producing candles… that is what Halloween is supposed to smell like! I miss “T.P.’d” and egged houses, hordes of kids in stupid looking store-bought costumes out in broad daylight trick-or-treating, and those little taffies in black and orange wax paper.
Turning out your lights and not giving out candy was not the norm, answering the door to explain to a child that you don’t celebrate Halloween was unthinkable. Going to someone else’s neighborhood to trick-or-treat instead of your own, was an odd thing to do. As well as your own neighborhood? Yes. Instead of? No!
I still love Halloween, but it’s more the idea of what I know it was or could be rather than what it is today.