Trick or Treat

As a child, my family participated in Halloween.  Every year we'd get our costumes, hop into the station wagon and hit the neighborhoods we DIDN'T LIVE IN.  We always had fun and we went to what you would consider to be the 'best' neighborhoods.  The residents would go all out decorating their homes, doors would swing open as smiling adults ushered us into their foyer.  There we do funny tricks before getting our treats.  At the end of the night ... we'd rush home to gather in the living room and dump all of our goodies in the middle of the floor.  Those were such wonderful memories and then ... that year the big kids came out, dressed in t-shirts and jeans, white powder on their faces, trying to take our treats ... Halloween wasn't so much fun anymore.

With my own children Halloween became a very guarded practice.  No longer was it safe to accept treats from strangers, no longer could you rush home, dump your goodies in the floor and dive in.  All candy had to be x-rayed for dangerous objects (pins, blades ... just nonsense) and you couldn't even think of eating someone's homemade treats, that stuff went straight to the trash!  It is so sad such a fun thing was turned into someone's sick joke. 

Now I don't participate for religious reasons, I always laugh at myself because I can be so much my Grandma's child ... she conveniently would not take part in various holidays for religious reasons, but had no problem being a recipient during that particular holiday.  Well I love to visit my co-workers and gleefully sing ♫trick or treat♫ as I reach into their candy dishes.  I even keep one on my desk for the office trick or treaters.  Thankfully my children are now grown with their own, because I just do not do the dress up thing or the taking kids around the neighborhood thing or the answering the door thing.  Too much drama from the little ones these days.  They are never happy with what you've provided and then they want to be greedy and take all they see.  One year we just left the bowl out and within minutes ... EMPTY and we knew that many children had not stopped by in that short time.

I was hoping to attend some sort of activity (harvest night), but I really don't have the patience to deal with a lot of stimulation right now.  So ... here's hoping for a peaceful, uneventful night on October 31st.