The Death Of Halloween
Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. I dress up every year in a costume to compliment my daughter's. Last year, we were pirates. This year, the theme was vampires.
My father came to stay with us while he had some surgury here. And when my husband took my two children Trick Or Treating, my dad and I watched The House on Haunted Hill while we waited for the tell tale ringing of the doorbell. Imagine my surprise when we only went through a quarter of the bowl of candy. And then my dad said it. "I think this is the slow death of Halloween."
I asked what he meant and he explained that with the crazy people around in this day and age, it just isn't safe to allow children to run amok the way I did during Halloween in my youth...only ten years ago. We would take off at sundown and come back when our bags (pillowcase sized) were full and not before. Alone. No parental chaperone after I was, like, ten. But that can't be the case in today's society, can it? And that is almost painfully sad to me because it's as if we're loosing an institution. Perhaps even a right of passage.
Is Halloween really dying?