Thank the Lord it’s November. That means that the worst of all holidays is over.
I loathe Halloween.
All year long we teach children that you should never take candy from strangers, yet one night every year, we throw that rule out the window and encourage them to walk around unsupervised ASKING for candy from strangers. It doesn’t teach kids anything and dentists’ offices across the country are filled with requests to fill cavities on this sugar-filled holiday.
Alli and I are pretty lame (by society’s standards) when it comes to this holiday. We never buy candy. We shut off our lights. Or we leave. The first year we were in our house, we bought candy and waited anxiously to give it out.
We had TWO trick-or-treaters. TWO.
So we ended up eating all the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups we had bought and watched TV. Those Peanut Butter Cups went straight to my gut and I don’t know if it has ever recovered.
These days, we don’t buy candy anymore. Some call us ‘Scrooge’, we don’t really care. We won’t apologize for our disdain for this manufactured “holiday” and you won’t see us celebrating it anytime soon.
What amazed me was this: I went to CVS Pharmacy to pick up some medicine for Alli and they were putting out the Christmas stuff. That’s just nuts.
But at least the crappy orange and black stuff is being put away.
Ok…just a few points I need to make.
One, as a mother of a 12 year old, I have NEVER let her walk around on Halloween unsupervised. I don’t know one of her friends that are allowed to go unsupervised either. That statement was way too generalized and not true.
Two, the “we tell our kids all year not to ask strangers for candy and then we allow them to this one day a year” is really a weak argument. First off, it’s totally lame; secondly going door to door for candy on Halloween is a TRADITION and has been widespread in our county since the 1930′s. That’s like saying that we shouldn’t give kids candy on Easter. I can’t count how many Easter egg hunts we’ve been to over the years with candy inside the eggs. That’s a stranger giving out candy to kids. Do you gripe about that too?
Three, the whole cavity and dentist thing…too lame to even comment on.
Four, “We won’t apologize for our disdain for this manufactured “holiday” and you won’t see us celebrating it anytime soon.” So based off of this statement, I am assuming that you and Alli do not celebrate Valentine’s Day too?
I know you don’t have kids and don’t want kids. Totally cool. Trust me, I see the appeal of that choice, but come on man….Halloween is not about YOU and how YOU feel. It’s about all your neighborhood kids that are SO excited to go trick-or-treating. Did you trick-or-treat as a kid? If so, remember what you thought about all of the douche bags with their lights off and not offering candy.
Wow. I never knew you could piss someone off by saying you hated Halloween. I personally loathe Halloween because I hate playing dress up.
My feeling on Halloween is that it’s a great way to get kids to socialize with their community. We wall off our kids everyday at school and separate them so much from the adults even at church that a lot of them have trouble socializing as adults. There’s nothing wrong with teaching kids to not take candy from strangers, just as there’s nothing wrong with teaching kids it CAN be okay as long as you check out what you’re getting.
I always thought it was fun to go out trick-or-treating as a kid. Then I thought it was fun to hand out the candy to all the kids as a teenager. We tried handing out candy while we were in our apartment, but only had 1 child come to get it. Of course, it probably didn’t help that every kid we heard we’d yell, “HEY, we have candy! Come up here!” When we moved into our house, we bought lots of candy, but only had a few show up. I still had fun though! I would make the older kids that didn’t even bother putting on a costume do a trick so they could get the treat. I think they were very confused about that. The last two years, it’s been all about Katie. She goes to several places because people want to see what she is dressed as. So, we went tick-or-treating in Grandma’s neighborhood where there are more children. Katie had a ball! It was fun for us too because we saw how excited she got and how much of a smile she put on other’s faces. When she was done (after 2 houses) we went back and handed out candy. Every time someone was at the door, Katie would drop what she was doing, run to the door, all the way yelling “KIDS! KIDS!” Children love to see each other and it makes it fun when they are dressed up.
I am afraid i too am with Suzanne, sorry. But not so angry 8o) For me it is because halloween is not a manufactured holiday. It goes back way before 1930, and it comes from many parts of the world. The western side of the globe is multi-cultural and so as with most holidays, we incorporated several different aspects of the old beliefs into our own… the druids , from the pagan religion believed that ‘all hallows eve’ was a night that the wall between our world and the spirit world was the thinnest, and the spirits can pass over, so to celebrate they would dress up as spirits and dance (plus other rituals). The Irish and other celtic religions celebrated it as an end of the summer (life) season, a time for harvest and for the dead. They celebrated with the sharing of the good harvest, feasts and bonfires. And in mexico they celebrated Dia De Los Muertos”, the Day of the Dead. Which was merged with our version of halloween after the Catholic religion started to get a hold of the people there. It is a three day celebration that is steeped in tradition, acknowledging first the ‘evil’ spirits on the first night, then the spirits of loved ones on the second night, who they leave an empty place at the table for, food outside the door and so on. Google any of these to see for yourself that halloween is a holiday worthy of remembering, and perhaps you can find a way to honor it that suits you better.
Man, this is a sensitive bunch. (or maybe I just don’t write well enough) That was not me angry. It was more sarcasm. There isn’t enough substance in this particular subject to elicit emotion from me…especially anger. I was more busting his chops than anything else. Geesh…
I think this blog was hilarious. I understand what you are saying and don’t mind that you prefer to be Halloween scrouges. Growing up with a mother that LOOOOOOVES to decorate the house up for Halloween, I’ve always enjoyed the crazy holiday. I’m looking forward to dressing my kids up for the candy hunt, and I promise you Shane, I (or Rich) will always supervise our kiddies when they go out. :)
You think its crazy that they have Christmas stuff at CVS. Tune into 98.1 on the FM dial and listen to the Christmas tunes they are playing already. Although it does put me in a good mood….its too early.
Look, the comments are getting shorter the further from the actual post we get…As for Halloween, I could take it or leave it.
I actually like Halloween. I grew up poor so Halloween was a genius way to get free stuff. we would start at dawn and go until no more lights were left on. It was always fun to throw a costume together and get a pillow case full of candy. I am not sure how I ever stayed thin or kept my teeth. We even have incorporated halloween into our Christmas traditions. Every year our young adult church friends have a party and we all come dressed as a character from a holiday movie. The costumes are great and the party is really fun. I do agree with not supporting holidays that you feel are manufactured. sarah and I don’t acknowledge Sweetest day…don’t we already have valentines day?
ha! scrooge! ha! halloween is fun. just buy some candy and give it to the kids already, you big jerks. i think as an adult it’s hilarious to see the new creative costumes that people come up with. plus it is the only time when all females believe it is ok to dress “slutty.” well, hello miss slutty pumpkin! how are you doing tonight?
Well I thought that my comments regarding All Hallow’s Eve would be met with some resistance, but hardly the amount given here…I believe this may be my second-most commented post of the past year! WOW!
One thing that I didn’t mention:
Alli and I dress up as burritos every Halloween in order to get free burritos from Chipotle. Call me hypocritical, but I loves me some burritos. This year, we got creative and modified some lawn bags into Chipotle to-go bags (actually, Alli really did all the modifications…I provided moral support). People looked at us like we were crazy, but the Chipotle workers seemed to think it was pretty creative.
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