Halloween

The final day of October means Halloween has arrived yet one more time. I have read that it is the second most popular date on the calendar, greater than birthday celebrations for many children. Although they say Easter is gaining in popularity and Christmas, of course, is still number one. Why....Candy of course! And Christmas has to be the presents as well as the food. But I was thinking of Halloween the way we did it growing up. It was certainly much different than today and yet, when you look at it, almost the same.
My parents did not subscribe to holidays for the most part and Halloween was one of the least observed. As little children we would wear self created costumes to Woodland Hall and the Maxwelton Community Club would hold a function for all the children in the community. We would have desserts and games, apple bobs and pin the something on the something are the only two I remember. Most of it was an excuse to just get together and talk I suspect. I do remember that I enjoyed the night out.
As we got old, maybe eight and up, we didn't do anything organized. Leland and I would cross dress usually and head to our Uncles house and Grandparents houses, but that was as far as we were ever allowed to go. The cousins were driven to a more densely populated community and came home with pillow cases full of candy. We usually had no candy but a cookie and/or popcorn ball. I thought having that much Candy would be the most wonderful thing in the world.
Then in about the 5th grade I was invited to a friends house for Halloween and they were going trick or treating. My first (and only) time so I was greatly excited. We dressed up in put together things, then covered them with rain gear as it always rains on Halloween! And off we walked. It was fun for awhile and then it stopped being fun when we got to an older woman's house, the group of us was maybe 10 or 12 girls, and she ran out of candy. I was at the back of the group and she said she would go find some money for us but begged us not to do anything bad to her. Looking at her terror of the situation really affected me, I just hung back from there on out and collected no more candy, and then went home feeling kind of low. In our rural community everyone went to the densely populated areas and harvested, they had to invest huge amounts of money on our behalf....and thus ruined Halloween as I thought about it.
Today it is all well again. The children go to the church and we take care of our own. They dress up and get candy while the adults get desserts and visiting. Hummmm...the circle has come around and it is a good place to be. I again love the day and look forward to maybe being a little more involved in costumes next time around. I got to make some costumes for Emily's kids a couple of years ago and it was grand fun. I would like to do that again in the future. But for now I will just enjoy the fact that it is a fun excuse to pretend and enjoy people and food.