Boo!

Happy Halloween! What is it about the holiday that makes it so much fun? When we were kids it was all about the candy. I remember wearing those vinyl costumes with the plastic masks, I never cared about the originality of my costume until I got much older. Back then, it was all about knocking on doors and chanting, “Trick or Treat”. And of course, being from a small town, the person answering the door always said, “Now who’s child are you?” and gushed and cooed about how grown up you were getting before dropping their popcorn ball, cookies, apple or if you were lucky, chocolate bar, into your treat bag. Where I lived, my parents had to take us trick or treating by car. I never knew what it was to be able to walk door to door.
When I hit my teens and started being invited to parties for Halloween I also began the search for the ‘perfect’ costume. It had to be cheap and cool. I remember being a scarecrow one year and a robot another. And then when I became a young adult I really got into the creative costuming thing. A football referee with my date being a quarterback. A zombie. A princess (thanks to an elaborate frou, frou bridesmaids dress.
Then I had children. No, vinyl costumes for them. Nope. They got to be really cool things. Like Batty and the fairy from Ferngully. A chef and a waitress. A baseball player. A colonial girl. A bag of jelly beans. A frog. And my kids could walk door to door in our subdivision and still bring home a half a year’s worth of candy.
Tonight was the first time in years that I haven’t celebrated Halloween in some way. I spent the evening at school. There was no greeting the little ones and handing out chocolate. No ‘oohing and ahhhing’ over costumes. I saw a few trick or treaters on the sidewalk in front of our office. And one little trick or treater came into school so her Mom could see her in costume. And I got a text message with a picture of a handsome little pirate smiling back at me. It made me a little melancholy to think that I just sort of missed the Halloween experience.
Which makes me wonder…does there come a time when we outgrow Halloween?