Original Post Date: October 27, 2010
When I was a kid, Halloween was on October 31st.
We figured out what our costume was going to be sometime between October 25th
and the 30th, and we dressed up for one night and set out on a
mission for candy with our pillowcase in hand to hold the loot. Our costumes
were simple, and consisted of clothes or cardboard and duct tape that we
already had at home. The houses in the neighborhood were decorated with a
single jack-o-lantern and a porch light that was turned off.
These days, Halloween is still on the 31st, but
it has turned into a month-long event. We purchase our kid’s costumes at giant
seasonal Halloween warehouse stores, and we do it in September. The kids wear
their costumes to school, birthday parties, church functions, and around the
house throughout the month of October. By the time Halloween night finally
rolls around, the kids are putting the costume back on for the 200th time. Families begin preparing their
houses for the big night promptly on October 1st. There is no time
to spare. The house must be decorated from sidewalk to roof.
To be honest, I’m not even sure why we have Halloween
anymore. In my day, we trick-or-treated to get candy. Plain and simple. We
never had candy the rest of the year. At least, we didn’t at my house.
If you do not currently have small children, you may not be
aware of a disturbing trend in birthday parties and get-togethers known as “The
Gift Bag.” These days when kids attend a birthday party, the guests all go home
with a “thanks-for-coming” goody bag full of little toys and candy. That
strange new development, combined with the fact that almost every party has a
piñata, has my children bringing home more candy from one birthday party than I
saw all year as a kid.
And, let’s talk about pumpkins for a minute. I don’t really
remember where my parents purchased our pumpkins when I was growing up. We may
have gone to a pumpkin patch, or maybe they just picked them up at the store.
One thing is for sure, we did not buy them at an amusement park like my kids
do. Somewhere between my youth and my becoming a parent, the pumpkin patch
turned into Disneyland for Vine Fruit. There are parking fees, parking
attendants, gate fees, gate attendants, food pavilions with $8 hot dogs, train
rides, petting zoos, side shows, giant play structures, face painting, cotton
candy, stroller parking, support staff, hay rides, pig races, haunted barns, and…
oh, yeah… pumpkins.
And how about the change in decorating for this “holiday?” Gone
is the simple one jack-o-lantern porch. My wife has no less than three huge
plastic storage tubs on our garage shelves dedicated to Halloween decorations. She
chooses to mix genres when it comes to the outdoor decorations. We have the
cutesy country décor hay bale and scarecrow on the front porch, combined with
the spooky giant spider web and grotesquely large furry black spiders guarding
the front door. We have eight small ghosts flying around underneath our tree on
the front lawn, and they have been vigilantly guarding the place for three
weeks now.
You will notice I said “outdoor” decorations. One very big
change since my youth is the addition of indoor decorations for this
all-important month-long holiday. We have Frankenstein on our sliding glass
door. We have ghosts on our microwave. The boys have ghost and goblin pillow
cases. We have a four-foot-tall witch on our staircase landing. We have a wood
carving of the word “Boo.” We have scary napkins. There is something Halloweeny
in every room in our house. Yes, every room. We actually have fuzzy
jack-o-lantern floor mat/toilet seat cover combos for the bathrooms. Our toilets have been reminding us of the
impending All Hallows Eve since October 3rd. That’s different.
I think the biggest change I’ve seen over the years, however,
has been the change in the point of Halloween. The reason for the season, if
you will. In my grandpa’s day, Halloween was a night of mischief. He and his
friends used to roam around on October 31st performing one simple,
yet effective prank on as many homes as they could hit in one night. They would
sneak into the backyard and move the outhouse. Apparently, most outhouses just
sat over the hole without much foundation, and they would slide them backward,
just one outhouse width, so the hole was open to the world in front of the door.
They were hoping for the inevitable outcome if the homeowner didn’t notice the
outhouse had been moved in the dark. (I’ll let you take it from there.) And if
you happened to get a backside full of birdshot while relocating someone’s
commode, well, that was simply the price you paid for having so much fun.
In my day, we went out on Halloween to make sure our
neighbors were following the rules. We felt we were owed candy, much like a mob
boss is owed protection money. We said, “trick or treat,” and we meant it. If
there was no treat, there was going to be a trick. The older kids had eggs or
soap for the windows. Fair was fair. We wore costumes for the same reason armed
robbers wear ski masks - anonymity. People had candy by the front door out of
self defense more than anything else. When someone decorated their house above
and beyond the single jack-o-lantern, they were actually trying to scare the
kids away, not entertain them. Halloween was a night run by the kids and
tolerated by the adults.
Today, in the suburban neighborhoods across this land,
Halloween has been hijacked by the adults. We adorn our front lawns and living
rooms for our own amusement, often competing with our neighbors in a game of
decoration one-upsmanship that used to be reserved only for Christmas lights.
We buy our kids expensive costumes so they can look just like a Star Wars storm
trooper or Hannah Montana as we escort them from house to house and
congratulate each other on how cool the front lawn graveyard looks with this
year’s addition of the fog machine. If people don’t have candy, or no one’s
home, we just say, “Oh, well,” and move on to the next house.
What is that all about? We’ve managed to get way off point
here. How will our kids ever know what Halloween is really all about?
Come to think of it, what is Halloween really all about?
It’s been a weird deal since its inception. Moving outhouses? Defacing your
neighbor’s property as part of a sucrose extortion racket? That’s just plain strange.
The more I think about it, the more I think this new trend
is a good thing. I mean, there’s always a truckload of candy at the end of the
night that I get to commandeer for my own consumption, my outhouse hardly ever
gets moved anymore, and I never have to try to get soap off my windows. Plus, my
boys get into enough mischief the other 364 days of the year as it is. I guess
it’s OK if we’ve moved away from the annual night of mandated mayhem toward a
kinder, gentler Halloween.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go turn on the
hydraulics for the automatic creaky coffin lid and fill the water tank on the new
fog machine. I am really going to outdo my neighbors this year!
See you soon,
-Smidge
Copyright © 2012 Marc Schmatjen
Have kids? Have grandkids? Need a great gift?
Go to www.smidgebooks.com
today and get your copy of “My Giraffe Makes Me Laugh,” Marc’s exciting new
children’s book. Get ready for a wild rhyming adventure!
No comments:
Post a Comment