Ruminations on Trick-or-Treating
There are a lot of reasons I like trick-or-treating (besides the leftover candy, you heathens), but the biggest one is this:
It’s a reason to talk to your neighbors.
Once a year, you’re guaranteed to have folks from all over your neighborhood - in theory, at least - knocking on your door, saying hello, and generally being pleasant. And the people having their doors knocked on are also being pleasant, and saying hello, and participating in an honorable social contract within the community: if I leave my light on (my part of the deal) and you wear a costume (your part of the deal), I give you something nice.
[Side note: all that nonsense about razor blades in apples is exactly that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were started by the people making fun sized candies of various persuasions in order to get us to buy more bags of tiny Butterfingers that are mostly wrapper. “Fun sized”, my ass.]
And implied in that was that you talked to all your neighbors. You didn’t knock on some doors and not on others because of politics or what church someone belonged to or whatever. You went, neighbor to neighbor, in a simple, human interaction.
Now, of course, trick-or-treating is on a downturn. In too many places, it’s being replaced by “Trunk or treating” or mall treating or whatever. And yes, I can see the benefits of limiting this to a controlled time and space, and not gambling against the extremely minuscule chance that one of your neighbors will, when asked for candy, instead respond with a chainsaw.
But I still think it’s a bad idea. Mall treating just reinforces consumer behavior - go store to store and get stuff. Trunk or treating is generally done within the bounds of an existing social group - a church or a school, for example - so there’s no reaching out, no getting to know your neighbors, no meeting the new.
Yes, I know, not every neighborhood’s great (or viable, or safe) for trick-or-treating. Not every neighbor wants to be reached out to, and there are a myriad of reasons to do something controlled and scheduled and above all, safe. But it feels sad that our neighbors don’t feel safe, that our neighborhoods don’t feel worth connecting with, that we can’t take as long as we need to make the circuit of the neighborhood and that at the same time as so many kids are trick-or-treating at the mall, so many people are shutting their lights off and hanging “no trick or treating” signs on their doors lest their evenings be disturbed by occasional friendly interruption.
We will, of course, keep the jack-o-lantern flame burning as long as we keep getting knocks on the door. But it’s always a little disappointing when this year’s knocks are fewer than last years, and last year’s were fewer than the year before’s. And in the back of my head I think of Ray Bradbury’s short story “Pillar of Fire”, wherein the last dead man on earth tries to reinvent Halloween and all its frights all by his lonesome in a world that’s gotten over being scared of the dark.
It’s a reason to talk to your neighbors.
Once a year, you’re guaranteed to have folks from all over your neighborhood - in theory, at least - knocking on your door, saying hello, and generally being pleasant. And the people having their doors knocked on are also being pleasant, and saying hello, and participating in an honorable social contract within the community: if I leave my light on (my part of the deal) and you wear a costume (your part of the deal), I give you something nice.
[Side note: all that nonsense about razor blades in apples is exactly that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were started by the people making fun sized candies of various persuasions in order to get us to buy more bags of tiny Butterfingers that are mostly wrapper. “Fun sized”, my ass.]
And implied in that was that you talked to all your neighbors. You didn’t knock on some doors and not on others because of politics or what church someone belonged to or whatever. You went, neighbor to neighbor, in a simple, human interaction.
Now, of course, trick-or-treating is on a downturn. In too many places, it’s being replaced by “Trunk or treating” or mall treating or whatever. And yes, I can see the benefits of limiting this to a controlled time and space, and not gambling against the extremely minuscule chance that one of your neighbors will, when asked for candy, instead respond with a chainsaw.
But I still think it’s a bad idea. Mall treating just reinforces consumer behavior - go store to store and get stuff. Trunk or treating is generally done within the bounds of an existing social group - a church or a school, for example - so there’s no reaching out, no getting to know your neighbors, no meeting the new.
Yes, I know, not every neighborhood’s great (or viable, or safe) for trick-or-treating. Not every neighbor wants to be reached out to, and there are a myriad of reasons to do something controlled and scheduled and above all, safe. But it feels sad that our neighbors don’t feel safe, that our neighborhoods don’t feel worth connecting with, that we can’t take as long as we need to make the circuit of the neighborhood and that at the same time as so many kids are trick-or-treating at the mall, so many people are shutting their lights off and hanging “no trick or treating” signs on their doors lest their evenings be disturbed by occasional friendly interruption.
We will, of course, keep the jack-o-lantern flame burning as long as we keep getting knocks on the door. But it’s always a little disappointing when this year’s knocks are fewer than last years, and last year’s were fewer than the year before’s. And in the back of my head I think of Ray Bradbury’s short story “Pillar of Fire”, wherein the last dead man on earth tries to reinvent Halloween and all its frights all by his lonesome in a world that’s gotten over being scared of the dark.