By John Focht
Well, it’s that time of year again. Time to drop your thirty-five-bucks-a-pop on each of your kids Halloween costumes and fifty-bucks on Halloween candy to provide to hundreds of kids who will parade up-and-down your yard trampling your garden and making-a-muck of your once fine-trimmed front lawn.
Happy Hallows Eve.
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Actually, Halloween is one of the best holidays invented. As a kid, Halloween meant ransacking your basement, closets, and bottom drawers to find the worst combination of items and turning it into your Halloween costumes.
Halloween seems a bit more commercialized these days with kids buying their Halloween costumes instead of making them. I realize I am on the fringe of sounding like a bitter old man who complains that in-my-day-I-walked-to-and-from-school-up-a-hill-in-both-directions, so I will digress from this rant.
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Personally, my own personal favorite Halloween costume was dressing up as the Denorex Shampoo guy.
Being the Denorex Shampoo guy was one of my all-time greatest Halloween achievements. It also afforded me the opportunity to walk around in slippers and a robe all night.
In my early years, as a twelve-year old kid, dressing as the Incredible Hulk could have been my best Halloween costume. I was dressed in some of my Dad’s old clothes which my Mom ripped up a bit for me and placed pillows underneath the clothes to build-up my Hulk muscles. She painted my face with green make-up. I was set and ready to roll with my finest Halloween costume to-date, unfortunately the very first house I knocked at, the lady confused me with the Jolly Green Giant.
Tough to get over that mistake.
Halloween has always been a holiday for the kids, but as the kids of the 1970’s and 1980’s have become the parents and adults of today, Halloween has shifted to be as much about the parents as it is about the kids. After all, the kids of the 70’s and 80’s continued to celebrate Halloween into the 1990’s at college Halloween parties, and post-college years too. For many adults in their 40’s, Halloween has always been celebrated. The celebration has taken different forms over the years, but plenty of adults still celebrate Halloween because that’s what they have always done. Taking Halloween away from someone in their 40’s would almost be like taking away Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Even today, some adults will dress up and parade around the neighborhood with their kids because, well, it’s just something they do on Halloween. Many household’s today leave a bucket of Halloween candy by the front door and both parents head out trick-or-treating with the kids, and hope a Halloween devil doesn’t dump the entire bucket of candy into their own candy bag.
Other households setup an elaborate Halloween event, like a graveyard in their driveway or front yard. Maybe they aren’t out trick-or-treating, but they are still participating in the Halloween fun.
From generation to generation in America, Halloween has continued to evolve. From the Hell’s Night antics of kids in the early 20th century, to a night for the kids in late 20th century, to a holiday for adults and kids alike today.
So go take out a small loan, buy some Halloween outfits for the family, and tons of Halloween candy for the neighborhood, and enjoy your Hallows Eve.
Read more on Halloween from John Focht at www.johnfochtjr.com/category/halloween/ .
