Our thoughts on Halloween.

Free Republic | 10.30.16 | Golux, FRiends

[golux]

Good evening FRiends. Here are mine:

It is October 31 and I sit, periodically rising to open the door for people who come to my house begging for candy.

Some of the people are dressed in an interesting fashion. I still take great delight in the artistic side of the costumes, including those of my kids: papier-mache, transformed linens, custom masks, paint... It remains a leisurely, artsy tradition. I've "made it."

I feel sorry for the kids forced to wear cheap store-bought costumes: their parents are maybe too busy, work too hard, are too poor to take the time the rich parents take. The kids see it. I remember all the pageants I attended in stinking plastic Spider-Man get-ups from the five and dime. I remember mulling about feeling foolish.

Some of the adults look pleasant enough. The children, generally, look miserable: exhausted, pressed to beg again and again for sugar. The babies seem utterly terrified. Some of them seemingly imprinting on pools of blood.

There is a seething misery about this night. I feel it.

Teens will come later, expecting something – anything - unless I turn out all the lights. The teens do away with "Trick or Treat," they simply groan and shuffle. A night of beggars celebrating unholy things. A night to teach children to act out a shameless, foolish, meaningless routine.

Am I a Grinch? I love the Holidays. I adore Purim and Hanukkah, I love Easter: though I am not a Christian the bells announcing the Resurrection of your Lord fill me with joy as I happily remember praying, as a boy, with my Christian friends. Christmas? Who cannot love Christmas. Heck, I even love Kwanzaa as it’s founder’s criminality reminds us of the hilariously transparent lie of “black nationalism,” the Alex Haley hoax, etc.

But – Halloween is empty. Plastic, shameful, inhuman, and worst of all, perhaps, a little sad: a whole holiday manufactured by Chinese children, importers, maybe Hallmark...

Ah, there's the doorbell.

golux

[golux]

I didn't mean to spoil anyone's fun, or seem a scrooge. I only wanted to point out that maybe we can all do better. I wanted to say I feel something's wrong, today, with this holiday. Alas we say: Thanks Costco! "Amen."

[Jamestown1630]

I think you just don’t remember Hallowe’en as many of us do, and don’t insert that memory into the present.

A lot of folks still enjoy it, just as I and my little friends did, back in the 1950s - even when our costumes came from the five-and-dime. It was full of wonder and fun.

[Snickering Hound]

Thanks to Costco, Sam’s Club and Walmart, candy is cheaper and better quality than when I was a kid.

I don’t even see that awful candy corn anymore, lots more chocolate and name brand stuff.

Not seeing many of those premade super hero suits this year, too warm.

[Jamestown1630]

Hey! I LOVE candy corn - Farley’s was always the best, much creamier than Brachs :-)

[Karoo]

I like Halloween. It is my birthday.

So every yr I go to town and everyone is dressed up celebrating me!

I like Halloween.

[Adder]

And I was not trying to sound like I was arguing. Indeed...I share your thoughts a lot of years.

But this year was different, for us at least. And I DO thank Costco so I could afford the large bars that helped these kids have something like the memories some of us have.

Next year might be very different.

[Jamestown1630]

Happy Birthday ;-)

[leaning conservative]

Happy Birthday! : )

[leaning conservative]

That is so cute! My brother still says, “Birfday.”

[Clutch Martin]

I usually go out to eat. Same as Christmas, I go out to eat. Walk around Williamsburg and enjoy the air. Stuff like that.

Halloween does have roots and along with those vestiges it now represents yet another stupid merchants holiday and a strange homage to death, which to me, isn’t too uplifting. I’ve seen enough death to understand that it isn’t something i would enjoy celebrating.

[ZagFan]

I LOVE Halloween.

Whoever thought of carving a pumpkin was a creative genius.

Trick-or-treating is the same tonight as it was 50 years ago. Every kid has been polite, in a costume and happy.

[kearnyirish2]

Halloween for us Celts is an innocent reminder of our pagan pre-Christian roots. Nothing wrong with being touch with your roots; a good time is had by all.

[Daffynition]

The History Channel had a good program about the origins of Halloween.

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=history+channel+origins+of+halloween&view=detail&mid=AE83E5E24C3AFBD9E352AE83E5E24C3AFBD9E352&FORM=VIRE

By the early 20th C kids pranks and fun started to get out of hand [at about 41 mins.] In 1933, cities saw the rise of serious, destruction by trick-or-treaters] 1933 was called Black Halloween; people saw that if H. was to survive changes needed to be made.

The Dennison Manufacturing Company of Massachusetts began fabricating paper costumes in 1910. Much changed by then. Dennison saw the commercial value in H.

https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/2016/10/history-halloween-costume-wearing-8012

Happy Halloween!

[wtd]

There are those of us, like you, who celebrate a 'costumed holiday' not once, but twice a year. Halloween is the most recognized universally here on this continent. Perhaps Purim is more your style.

We've raised four children (all adults now) with home-made costumes and festive decorations with jack-o-lanterns and spider webs clinging to door posts. Innocent fun with pretend costumes/makeup, spooky but harmless pranks, and of course lots of treats (not all necessarily sugar) has been enjoyed for decades in this household.

We have, in the past, had neighbors whose religious beliefs did not accept Halloween as 'harmless fun' - as also witnessed in a few comments to this thread. They would lock their house up tight and spend the evening in bible class with their four children. As a concession to these families, the local schools altered the long established Halloween festival to the "Harvest festival" ...allowing a separate area for costume parades and such. No harm, no foul.

It's how one chooses to interpret it. Our family opts to enjoy the time to dress up and pretend to be someone or something else for a few hours. Treats are like prizes for participation . . .polite participation...as you said, a good time to set a good example for proper manners by setting expectations for Please and Thank you ...as well as "Trick or Treat".

Happy Halloween to all!

BTW...my neighborhood is apparently aging out...we had only a handful of kiddies this year. In recent years we've had as many as 600 trick-or-treaters ring my doorbell. The weather is fairly good tonight - so I'm surprised at how few stopped by. I just hope the decline has nothing to do with the recent reports of PC limits on costumes - what with accusations of cultural appropriation and crazy clowns on the loose. Aye yay yay, I could go on...but you get the picture.

[JoeProBono]

[Daffynition]

[leaning conservative]

Those look like Diane Arbus photos, especially the last one.

[Jamestown1630]

We never get any kids anymore, where we live, nor where we lived ten years ago. I think a lot of parents are just afraid to let the kids go out.

That’s very sad. Fortunately, there are gatherings at local community facilities; but it can’t be the same as what we experienced, going out in the dark and around the neighborhood ;-(

[waterhill]

Well, I love Halloween. Friday night the gf and I went to Vinnie Abbot’s bash at the Gas Monkey in Dallas, complete with an Alice Cooper cover band. We were homemade and a hit. Saturday was Deep Ellum, different costumes and we were a hit. Home made. Store bought is plain cheese.

[Daffynition]

Maybe, but I don't think so.