Halloween Takes A Holiday

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I have talked about this many times before, during my childhood, I believed that Halloween was the greatest holiday of all.  It was the coolest concept for kids ever, just cut two eye holes in one of your mothers’ old bedsheets, grab a pillowcase and go door to door begging for candy—easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.  There was something that seemed magical about that night, most usually, during that time of year, the weather was excellent. It was a clear, crisp, moonlit night, the temperature usually in the 60s to maybe low 70s.  It just seemed magical, like there was a true meaning to the All Hallows’ Eve.

I realize that things change and seem different after you grow into adulthood, but I tell you this—the holiday has drastically changed.  Even when I took my own children out trick-or-treating 25 years ago there still seemed to be some magic left in the old holiday.  But today there is a completely different air about the once magical night of boo!  First of all, lighting and decorations in the yard more resemble a laser light show at a planetarium than the simple old carved pumpkin with a candle burning down to a mass of waxy goo.  Also, it seems that more and more churches, businesses and community organizations are doing something called “trunk or treat” where the kids go to these specified locations to procure their candy, completely avoiding the friendly confines of the neighborhoods.

This has greatly reduced the number of kids coming to your door looking for those goodies that are dropped in their carrying device (bags, plastic pumpkins, etc.).  Three years ago, I had around 250 kids stop by the house and display their Halloween artistic ability via their costumes.  In some cases, you had to guess what they were actually dressed up to be, no easy feat for me these days as I do not watch the newer generation of “horror-nee-slasher-zombie movies and I am about as pop-culture- dysfunctional as a human can be.  But it was still fun just seeing some kids still have the imagination and enjoyment of what this holiday used to be.

It also seems like the stores do not give Halloween the treatment they once did, candy is only manufactured by a couple of different companies, packaged as a variety mix, most of it is the same 3 or 4 candy types in every bag sold.  Back in the day, there were a million different types of candy offered, like the wax soda bottles and the sugary delight in a straw.  Also, there are hardly any of the old cheap costumes left anymore (maybe it is because they had a low flash point which could really put a damper on things).  And it seems the stores today have little regard for Halloween anymore as most of that shelf space is now reserved for Christmas items.  I’ve written recently that they keep bringing Christmas stuff out earlier and earlier every year, soon they will have all that crap out in early June or for that matter they may never put it away.  I know there was a scare some years ago of idiots who were putting needles and pins in candy, seemed like we had finally rid ourselves of those ass wipes but now something new is snuffing out my beloved holiday—corporate retail raiders.

Some people that I’ve talked with recently say that parents today are more concerned with going to the adult parties than being bothered with having to run their children all around the neighborhood to fill their bags with that sugary goodness.  I am not sure if this is the case or not and I truly hope that it isn’t.  If this is true, then parents are not wanting to go the extra mile for their children which has reduced Halloween to a vapid event that we are obligated to service.  There seems to be a lot less parenting going on these days than there used to be, it’s rather depressing to think that Halloween will become one of their victims.  However, in retrospect, my parents didn’t take me out trick- or- treating after age 10—I went on my own.

I continue to believe however that a lot of the blame for the death of Halloween (if you will) belongs to the retail establishments and corporations.  Halloween has been pushed off the shelves in favor of the promotion of Christmas which brings in much more money at the end of the retail year.  As we all know, money is much more important than happiness, and corporations are all about money.  Halloween has become a holiday where we impatiently stand by and wait for it to pass and quickly move on to the holiday that brings more corporate joy in the form of greed.

The truck or treats crowd is stealing some of the corporate retail-recipe and I don’t mean this in a bad way but many of these organizations use the holiday to attract families for self-promotion.  Tradition is slowly dying and giving way to more marketable promotions and Halloween has become their biggest victim.  I don’t believe that we will ever see Halloween return to its glory days of being a holiday that was more about fun and lore with the reward of tasty candy.  But instead, like everything else in our country it will become corporatized and will simply be a date on the calendar.  If you don’t believe me, then next Halloween, head to your nearest super-store and observe how the holiday is poorly represented.  As always this is just my opinion.

Talk to Ya Later

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer @2019 All Rights Reserved