Halloween.

[isabelladangelo]

I only got half the amount of kids as last year. My neighbors and I kept sitting out on our front porchs waiting for the kids to come so we could get rid of all the candy we bought. So, well, I'll have a nice supply of chocolate for the month.

I know everyone has different "rules" (they are really more like Guidelines...teehee) regarding Halloween. The no costume=no candy seems pretty universal from what I've seen/heard/read. Sorry, but if you can't be bothered with even making your own mask out of construction paper, then I can't be bothered with giving you candy. End of story. Some people believe there is an age limit to trick or treating. Kinda. However, I, personally, could care less how old you are. If you are in costume, you get candy.

The one thing that really got to me in my parent's neighborhood was what the parent's did over there with their young kids; they took them to the mall. O_o Part of the fun of Halloween, at least for me, was going house to house to see all the decorations, seeing if your friends' parents were dressed up, and running around in the dark with a flashlight. It's not like Bethesda is a high crime rate area or is sparsely populated; either of which would be a good reason to go to the mall rather than attempt a neighborhood outing. (Even then, I think it would still be more fun to go to a neighborhood where a family friend lives. Malls simply aren't scary. Running around in your witch costume with only your broom and your flashlight while the fog rolls in around the Victorian looking brick townhomes and houses? That's scary.) Yet, the parents I talked to last year about it said they took the kids to the mall because it was "safer". Ummm, no. Not really. Actually, the mall that most of the parents along that street take the kids too has had a spike in crime over the past five years. My parent's neighborhood? The crime rate dropped to null after the kids across the street moved away.

My real problem with just taking the kids to the mall is that it takes a bit of the fun out of Halloween. It's fun to poke your flashlight (or lightsaber) into the bushes to see if there is anything hiding there. It's fun to be outside, in the dark, when your parents normally would be telling you to get ready for bed. There is little fun to be had when it comes to standing under florescent lights and going up to Bath & Body works for candy, even if it's decorated. Going up to the house on the corner or the "witch's" house (every neighborhood had that old lady that would scare off all the kids the rest of the year and then have one single pumpkin out on Halloween, right?) on Halloween, with poor lighting, cool air, and the sounds of giggles and rustling leaves being carried over the cool late October breezes? That's what makes Halloween. The mall just doesn't have that.

Comments

[lady-anne-clare.livejournal.com]

I completely agree. Our mall does the candy thing too but we've never seen the point in doing it. We enjoy being outdoors, seeing all the different houses and costumes. I can understand for maybe the kiddies in strollers or ones who can't walk for long but the older kiddies get so much more fun being outdoors.

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

Exactly! Being outside is fun. We are inside too much already.

[jillwheezul.livejournal.com]

Yeah, fewer kids here too. I miss the olden days. I was recalling with my mother the literally hundreds of kids that were out in the neighborhood and we ran around like crazy. Loved it. I am positive the mall experience is just not the same - how lame that parents have fallen for the unsafe label - then at least have an adult go with them. Perhaps the scariest visitor was the Jehovah's Witness who was sucked in by my skeletal display :)

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

:-) Lol. That must have been interesting.

I am positive the mall experience is just not the same - how lame that parents have fallen for the unsafe label - then at least have an adult go with them.

You are so right.

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

I had *no* trick-or-treaters.

[isabelladangelo.livejournal.com]

My parents had that happen last year. I'm glad I got about 25 kids or so this year. At least some still want to keep the spirit of Halloween alive.

[florentinescot.livejournal.com]

It's just been a bizarre year, here -- first off, I'm kinda out in the boonies (and when you're out in the boonies in a small Agricultural Community .....)

But The City tried to make Halloween *Thursday* night because of the football game on Friday ... And all the Mall stuff, and the events at the college. Everybody was somewhere else.