My wife simply doesn't appreciate the beauty and majesty of Halloween.Sadly, she just doesn't see the appeal of running around collecting scads of free candy. Fortunately for our children, The Hawg well understands the joys of Halloween.
So, I'm the one who takes the little darlings out on Halloween night. I've got a seven-year-old daughter and an 11-year-old son and am fully aware of the importance of grabbing all the candy possible on that dandy holiday.
This year was probably my son's last to participate in trick-or-treating, so I do hope we made it special. Both of my kids got enough candy to rot the teeth of at least a dozen children, so I figure I did my job.
We're lucky in that our neighbors are very generous when handing out candy. Yes, in a mere 1.5 hours of wandering through the neighborhood, my daughter's bag was so full that I had to carry the candy that had fallen out of the top of the bag. Don't worry -- my son's bag was close to full. He made out just fine.
Sadly, we live in a part of the world where some people just don't participate in Halloween. Yes, they declare it a "the devil's holiday" and avoid it. That's a true shame -- I don't know how Satan figures into a holiday which is built around the practice of children running around grabbing free candy.
So, my son put on his camouflage, my daughter dressed as the "spider queen" and we had a great time. More houses are dark than when I was a kid as not as many people participate in the holiday, but I was glad to see the folks who did take part were as enthusiastic as ever and dropped liberal amounts of candy in my kids' bags.
I should mention a conversation I had with my little brother this week about Halloween. He came up with the perfect costume for my daughter, see. He said she should dress up as Mother Teresa.
She could run around the neighborhood collecting candy during the first half of the evening and then spend the second half giving it away. Yes, that's certainly in the spirit of Mother Teresa, but I doubt my daughter would have gone for that at all.
Every Halloween I also think of a story about my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. The belonged to one of those churches that hated Halloween. The pastor decided to have a "fall festival" on Halloween one year and encouraged the parents to dress their children up as Biblical characters.
My brother-in-law and sister-in-law, smart-asses they are, dressed their two sons up as crusaders. The pastor loved it. That, folks, is funny on at least four or five different levels.
Finally, my poor cat, Itchy, hates Halloween as we make her stay inside. Itchy is a black cat and, unfortunately, those tend to vanish on Halloween. We'll let her out in the morning, however. She'll just have to deal with being angry, staring out the window and yowling at us until then.
I hope everyone had a great Halloween.
10 comments:
It sounds (and looks) like your kids hit the motherlode. Glad everyone had fun. We're often the last ones to turn off our porch light and we always have too much candy leftover. The beauty part is the last 10 kids or so get multiple treats because we don't want it laying around the house. It pays for them to stick it out til the very end. Happy Halloween!
How could this be the last year for your son to go trick-or-treatin' when his dad still loves it so??? Enquiring minds want to know.
Now this is what I'm talking about! Looks like one of my old piles of worthless wonders...love it.
Hawg, I think it's great that you still like to celebrate Halloween and that you want to give your kids the same experience that you got when you were their age.
My neighborhood has pretty much gone dark on Halloween. I would sure hate to see this holiday die out; it is all about the kids, so what could be so wrong about that?
Anyway, great story and great post. Thanks for sharing a little of the Hawg's life with us. Best wishes.
We had not one trick or treater. But in apartments you seldom do. It's a shame that so many are foregoing the holiday.
and I know you know that Halloween has it's roots in a Pagan holiday. But what most people don't realize is how we celebrate our modern day Christmas, also has roots in a Pagan holiday.
Hope you checked that candy out first and confiscated everything for yourself that looked even remotely suspicious...LOL
First: your kids are adorable and good for them, grabbing as much candy as possible. That's the point! It's too bad not everyone participates, but I have to admit: I usually don't either, tho NOT because of the devil but because we get so few trick or treaters, but even those few doorbell rings send my poor cats into a frenzy.
SECOND: regarding dressing up the kids as Crusaders (hilarious), you have to read Tiggy's post. Your brother-in-law may get even more ideas:
http://www.tiggyblog.com/2008/10/29/tiggys-shopping-bizarre-have-a-holy-halloween/
JD at I Do Things
Hey Hawg! Just wanted to pop in and say a little something because it seems like your knowledge about the history of Halloween is a little skewered. It's not, "a true shame -- I don't know how Satan figures into a holiday which is built around the practice of children running around grabbing free candy." It's more like, "Why would families encourage their kids to celebrate a day that traditionally has been set aside to celebrate evil?"
Long before there was candy and kids' costumes, there were human sacrifices and rioting (and still are). Here in America, we do tend to see our holidays as pure materialistic celebrations, but everywhere else, there was meaning behind holidays. A holiday isn't a real holiday without some kind of meaning besides the stuff you get.
It's kind of like celebrating Hitler's birthday. All the kids get together and exchange gifts and pass out candy that day, and the parents see it as an innocent "holiday" of candy and fun, but the real start of the day was to honor and appreciate Hitler. So the underlying question with such a thing is, "Why are they celebrating Hitler's birthday?!"
Halloween is viewed in the same way.
kathy -- Is there such a thing as too much candy left over? Not around here, they're not.
FishHawk -- Well, it's because we see people who are about 16-years-old out begging for candy. At one point, they're just too old, see?
Don -- Fortunately, their are still families that haven't subscribed to that "debil's day" crap. Those rascals ruin everyone's fun, yeah?
Matt -- I just hope their kids will be able to enjoy the holiday, too.
Lala -- Exactly right, and people with such selective memories tend to ruin everyone's fun.
JD -- Heading over there in a minute.
Mrs. Mecomber -- Phooey on every bit of that. Double-phooey, in fact. The pagan elements of Halloween were entirely removed from the holiday until a bunch of fundamentalists decided to raise a stink and ruin everyone's fun.
And I'm very much pro-Christian. However, I'm a laid-back Methodist. In other words, I subscribe to a denomination with a well-established tradition that is led by educated scholars (our pastor graduated from Duke) who know when to leave well enough alone.
I won't bother with the "Hitler's Birthday" comparison. That goes beyond even comparing apples to oranges -- more like comparing apples to zebras.
Hawg,
Even though more and more houses go dark for Halloween, I don't think the holiday is going out of business any time soon.
According to the National Retail Federation, 5.7 BILLION dollars was spent on this past Halloween!
And I thought we were in a recession.
Paul -- That's great news! Yay for Halloween.
Now, if only the Great Pumpkin would visit my home...
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