Happy Halloween!!!!
Halloween was a big deal in California during my childhood, continuing when my kids were young. The neighbourhood where my kids grew up was the kind that families from all over the county would visit so that they could trick or treat there on Halloween. It was safe, houses were reasonably close together, and, most importantly, the homeowners went all-out on decorations for Halloween. In a very slightly competitive way, each year there were more extravagant decorations then the previous.
My then husband and I moved to this lovely neighbourhood a month before Halloween. We had one child who had just turned three, and the other was about to turn one. Since we hadn’t met anyone else with kids, we had NO IDEA how bonkers the Halloween celebration was. We moved from a decent neighbourhood in a nearby big city; the neighbour kids came around on Halloween from the three or four surrounding blocks. We put a carved pumpkin on our front porch. We gave away one, maybe two bags filled with small candy. We’d go 15 minutes between trick-or-treaters arriving. Plenty of time to make some dinner, watch a movie, and possibly sample some of the candy we had ‘overbought’ not knowing how many kids would show up.
This next home was properly suburban, with big clean schools, tidy sidewalks and wide bike lanes along the quiet flat streets. Almost everyone had a manicured lawn in front of their 1960s ranch house. That first Halloween we took our little pumpkin baby and our princess toddler around to the neighbours on the court, more to say hello than to get any candy.
As we headed back home, we noticed a large number of cars driving into the neighbourhood, including one van parking on our quiet court, with a dozen kids piling out. The kids were dressed up in great costumes, including their adult chaperones. The pirates, robots and cartoon princesses were carrying full-sized pillowcases as bags that could hold a LOT of candy. We looked wide-eyed at each other and rushed into our house to prepare.
Did we have time to go get more candy? Not really, as this gang of 12 was already walking towards the door. Our doorbell rang and we answered it, trying to look surprised. They all shouted “Trick or treat” and looked down expectedly for a large offering of candy. We needed to ration our meagre candy supply so we handed them one bar each rather than let them chose. They seemed a bit disappointed, but they were all polite and wished us “Happy Halloween” before hurrying off to the next house.
After less than an hour of answering the door pretty much constantly, we were out of candy. The groups of colourfully costumed kids sent our doorbell ringing constantly. The younger kids shyly approached the door with their parents hovering behind. The older kids were full of loud swagger and impatience to move quickly on to the next house: their goal was to fill up their pillowcases as fast as possible. Sometimes we didn’t even bother to shut the door: as one group left, another was coming up the walkway towards the door, already thrusting their bags towards us shouting “trick or treat”.
Reluctantly we turned off the lights in the front of the house, blew out the candle in the carved pumpkin, and hid ourselves in the back of the house so people thought we weren’t participating in Halloween. Lesson learned!
The subsequent years we bought ever bigger and more bags of candy. When our kids got old enough to want to go trick or treating, we took turns escorting the kids around in ever-widening circles, always leaving one adult behind to hand out the bags and bags and bags of candy. We learned quickly to share our fun neighbourhood, inviting our friends who lived farther away to bring their kids to go trick or treating from our house. That way pairs of parents could either stay home to hand out candy and enjoy the colourful costumes, or take our group of kids trick or treating around the neighbourhood and enjoy the decorations. Everyone got to enjoy the fun.
As the years went by, Halloween itself increased in popularity. House decor became more elaborate and small window decorations were replaced by house-sized spider webs and people sized spiders. Bats hung from the trees and some even seemed to fly by. Coffins opened up revealing spooky skeletons in front lawns. Moans, groans, screams and hooting owls were heard all evening.
It really was a spectacular event each year, and I was particularly delighted that people came from outside the area to enjoy the safe and fun Halloween celebrations. We had the privilege of living in a wonderful place filled with abundance: of course we could share. Naturally there were some in the neighbourhood who complained that it “wasn’t fair to have all these outsiders coming around”, and it “costs money to provide all this candy, you know.” I did know, and I was pretty sure money wasn’t the issue. I made sure at our house we were always as welcoming as we could be.
When I was growing up, I lived in a rural village where the houses were far apart on dark streets with no sidewalks. No one trick or treated there. I was invited by friends who lived in big friendly neighbourhoods to come over and trick or treat with them each year. So I understood that celebrating Halloween was a privilege; sharing what you had with others was a fundamental part of the celebration.
I was so delighted to see my kids and their friends continue these sharing traditions of Halloween. After drinking their body weight in water or apple juice after returning home from their night out trick or treating, they sat in a circle on the floor. Just like we had done as kids, they spread all their candy out in front of them, surveying their treasure. Then they started swapping with each other: two M&M bags for two Snickers bars. Some Sweet Tarts for some Jelly Belly packs. Bubble gum for Candy Corn. As kids, we had always donated a few extra packs of candy (albeit the ones we didn’t like as much) to the younger siblings who couldn’t go out for as long, or to the parents as a thank you for going out with us. Our kids carried on the tradition (perhaps with a little nudge the first year).
I know that some of these trick or treat traditions have changed over time to make Halloween safe in more places, and also more of a communal event. Now there are both house and street parties instead of trick or treating, and sometimes neighbourhood businesses join in to create a safe community space. I’m in favour of whatever keeps the joy and sharing and a tiny bit of spookiness alive!
Do you have favourite Halloween traditions? 🎃 Did you participate in Halloween as a kid? (I know in the UK it is just now starting to get popular)
A last note: I am increasingly distracted by the US election, and I’m not sure what I will be capable of writing next week. So, I may rerun an older post, or, who knows. I was HUGELY relived to find out earlier this week that my ballot had been received and counted in Monterey County, California. So, as a reminder to my US readers: all our votes count. Please vote if you can / if you haven’t already! 🇺🇲
xoxo Sabrina
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Loved these Halloween insights, Sabrina!
I remember being in NYC one October when I was a child and being absolutely overcome by the big deal that Halloween was - huuuuuuuge decorations and lights outside every dwelling, costumes and pumpkins and face paint and spookiness everywhere you looked. I was absolutely TERRIFIED - I'd never seen or heard of anything like it over here in UK at the time, nor for many years after that. In the 40+ years since, though, trick-or-treating and decorating have become a much bigger deal.
My earliest memories of Halloween were in suburban to rural Minnesota in the early 1960's. At least for the "big kids," I recall the "trick" in "trick-or-treat" being more than an idle warning. Soaping of windows and toilet-papering of trees were not uncommon. Most importantly for me, I remember being set loose with my older sisters when I was perhaps 6 years old. Sometimes we wandered the neighborhood in the dark by ourselves on foot; on others, an adult parent or older sibling served as a taxi cab driver. Even in this second case, we were largely in control of our path. The experience of being outside in the chill night, wandering down unfamiliar sidewalks, and knocking on the doors of strangers was exhilarating. I'm guessing that such freedom is rare, today. Certainly we did not grant it to our own young children. And the candy was good, too.