It is the Halloween season and time for us all to dawn our masks, costumes and gory face makeup, grab a bucket (or if you are a pro, a pillow case) and head out into the world for some free candy.
I will be the first to admit that I am not the greatest Halloween celebrator. I hardly ever dress up, in fact I think over the last 5 years of Halloween I have been a “football player” 4 times and the Big Bad Wolf pretending to be the Grandma once. The Big Bad Wolf thing happened last year because I now have a daughter who is old enough to trick or treat and she was Little Red Riding Hood. Also, the football player costume was just me in a Chicago Bears football jersey and some jeans. In all actuality you can see me in that exact costume every Sunday for four months (excluding bye weeks) out of the year during football season. I also don’t look forward to carving pumpkins, gutting them is extremely slimy, gross and messy and it usually ends up not looking anything like you had imagined. Now days some punk teenage kid is just going to smash it anyway or at least blow out the candle inside that took you 10 minutes to light (I must admit that I was a candle blower outer).
It feels like Halloween has changed from when I was a kid. I understand that I am an adult now and of course it’s not going to be the same but I think most of you who are at least around my age and of the same generation might understand where I am coming from. Apparently there is something called a food allergy, this is a huge thing and was discovered about 5-7 years ago and is now changing how our children will trick or treat. Okay, sorry, I am being a little insensitive but I know all about the dangers of food allergies, my sister is deathly allergic to peanuts. If she even smells a peanut she starts hacking up a lung but no worries Carlee I will always be there to put that Eppy pen right into your heart to save your life (ha ha, just kidding I know it goes directly into the brain). When I was a kid, my friends and I went to as many houses as possible and didn’t care what kind of candy it was, cause guess what? It was CANDY! Now little Herbert down the street can only knock on 1 out of every 50 houses because those are the only ones with a teal pumpkin outside indicating that their candy is allergen free. For the record, we have no nerdy food allergy kid by the name of Herbert on our street. Oh and what the hell is gluten? Apparently everyone is allergic to that sh**. I am pretty sure about 10 years ago nobody was allergic to gluten and if they were they didn’t know it. Again, sorry for being insensitive, I also have members of my family who are allergic to gluten and when we eat dinner with them they ruin all of my favorite gluten filled dishes, ha ha just kidding again.
Now that I have said all of that and at the risk of sounding like a cynic let me move on by saying, let’s take back Halloween and make it fun again. Halloween has always been a time to be a little crazy, I think we can stop all the trunk or treating and get back to knocking on doors like the old days. Side note: Trunk or Treats are only okay if they are an addition to Trick or Treatingnot a substitution. There are a lot of things to worry about in this world but if we try and prevent all of them, our children aren’t going to have any fun, we might as well dress them up in bubble wrap, sit them in front of the TV with that DVD of a fake fire place going and make them listen to church hymns (church hymns can be great but not my idea of fun). I don’t ever want to be scared to scare the crap out of my kid. As young children, my brother Trevor and I watched as many scary movies as possible, our favorites being all of the John Carpenter Halloween movies series (the one with Michael Myers). Sure our parents ran the risk of us becoming creepy serial killers but that was a risk they had to take. Did I ever have nightmares? Probably, but it sure as heck didn’t mess me up and I had a lot of fun being scared. It’s kind of sick and twisted but those were great bonding moments for me and my bro and to this day we love watching those movies together.
Now that I am an adult with children of my own, I am making a secret pact to myself and my children (who by the way know nothing of this pact mainly because one is 3 and the other…well he hasn’t been born yet, but will very soon) that I will let them be scared, when it is fun but that I will protect them when it isn’t. The great thing about Halloween is that most of the time the scares are fun and we should always remember that.
If you are reading this, you now know how bored I was at work for the last 2.5 hours. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!
