When I was growing up, Halloween was a time for kids to make a costume (or have their mother make one), go out, get some candy, collect some UNICEF and then feel sick for a week (and make their dentists much richer). There was 1 Halloween special and that was the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, and people gave apples (plain and candied) and other tasty homemade goodies. You carved a pumpkin with triangle eyes, a jagged smile, and a candle lit it.
For a while, Halloween fell off my radar, mostly, but then I had kids and Halloween returned, but now:
- Costumes are mostly bought (for a significant cost)
- You have to decorate your house (no half measures either; if you don’t spend at least 3 days setting up your house you are some kind of loser)
- It would be best if you bought tonnes of candy
- Going to work in costume is expected (although I must admit the various salacious costumes I have seen are quite entertaining)
- You must spend a day carving an image of Jack Nicholson from The Shining onto your pumpkin.
The amount of money that can be spent on this day (no it’s not a holiday either) is astounding. All of this is in the shadow of American Thanksgiving and, of course, the Big C (we shall not say Yuletide’s real name just yet (it is a Yang worship word)). It used to be my wife and I could easily blow upwards of $300 on a small part of this, but we have curtailed it all back to not very much (and we usually end up eating most of the candy we buy, since we don’t have many visitors).
What do I do on Halloween if I am not a true Halloweeny? I wish my daughter Happy Birthday, my in-laws Happy Anniversary, give out some candy, and watch my son go out trick-or-treating, and that is enough.
Happy Halloween ?!?
Bah Humbug to Yet Another Hallmark Holiday (with my apologies to the various Witches, Wickens and Druids that view this as a holy day).
Well if you would like to move All Saints Day November 1st, All Hallows Eve will always be on October 31st.
BCW
Why can’t Halloween be always on Friday or Saturday. Being on a school day makes it that much difficult for the kids. Is there a reason why the Halloween is always on the 31th?
In the economic situation that we are in today it would be a smart idea to celebrate halloween in the same way that it was done years ago. If a person were to save everything that they spent on halloween, over the course of a lifetime you would be able to save thousands. Of course the halloween expenses aren’t 100% preventable because i’m sure that you’ll want to give candy out to the kids, but if you cut back on that, and make homemade costumes you’ll have a nice savings!
My children are grown and we do not do anything for Haloween. I live in a gated community and no trick or treaters stop by. Don’t feel sorry for me, it is nice and quiet.
As lil’ SPF is 1 month and 2 days old we’re skipping Halloween this year. Just too much work (our house had over 100 kids last year – new neighbourhood is awesome!). I’m not big on candy distribution, and the cats + dog always try to flee when the door opens … next year! (and boy, did we save money by opting out!)