The Scrooge of Halloween.

Halloween is a great event, if you are six.  That remark will doubtlessly upset anyone over 18 who reads this and is wearing a costume while doing so.  I just never really saw the point behind Halloween.  I don’t like references to horror, and there’s enough in the world to be afraid of already without having a night of celebrating it.  I like a good time though for children to have fun.  I’m fine with Halloween in that context.  I started thinking it was silly when I was about 10 years old.  If Halloween had an unrepentant equivalent to Ebenezer Scrooge, I would be him.

However, there are good memories to be had from Halloween.  In my original hometown of Frankford, I liked making the rounds to about five houses immediately close to ours.  My grandparents didn’t live in town, but both Grandma’s always made sure I got one of their specially made treat bags within a couple of days of Halloween.  Both of them lived in the country and few children actually knocked on their doors on Halloween, so extra effort always went into treat bags containing several types of candy, potato chips, chocolate, and sometimes a candied apple or ball of caramel popcorn.  That’s how Halloween treats are done in the country.  The kids go to fewer houses, the people in the houses see fewer kids, so they compensate by handing out better treats.  I hear this is still pretty common now around where my niece and nephew go trick or treating near their farm.  And like me long ago in Frankford, they just go to the close neighbours, family, and friends.

Today I was visiting with a friend and we got talking about trick or treating when we were kids.  We talked about those molasses “kisses” and how some people liked them and others did not.  My sister and I did not like them, nor did we like those little sour tasting “Rocket” candies that look like pills but are packaged in plastic-wrapped rolls.  My friend said his Dad always liked them.  My Dad always liked them too.  We would set them aside with the molasses kisses and Dad would take them away deer hunting the following week.  One year we had a whole bag of molasses candies we didn’t want and Dad couldn’t eat them all.  We were living in Listowel by that time and had a stray cat problem in the backyard.  Dad would unwrap molasses candies and fire them at the stray cats with a slingshot.

There are always people who hand out strange things to trick or treaters too.  Halloween is supposed to be about getting treats you normally cannot have.  Handing a kid a toothbrush or small carton of fruit juice at Halloween is like telling someone who is eating a steak to think of the welfare of cattle.  This afternoon, my friend talked about trick-or-treating at a retirement home and how one lady gave all of the children cough drops.  Why not just offer each child a spoonful of actual cough syrup instead?

In a few minutes, I’m having my annual Halloween celebration.  Usually at around 8:00pm on Halloween, stores start marking down the prices on the candy.  I always go in and stock up, and if I go to the right stores, I can even collect Air Miles or stamps for new pans!