Happy Halloween everyone! I wanted to start a thread for general discussion about this holiday (I know thereās a few about scary movies/games specifically, but wanted to make a place to talk about Halloween overall).
If you have any Halloween memories, thoughts, or vibes you want to share, this is the place. Pictured below: the candy I will be handing out to trick or treaters tonight.
For me, my relationship with this holiday has changed a lot over the years. As a kid, Halloween was second only to Christmas in terms of excitement, and Christmas only won out because it usually meant a new video game to play. Halloween was special, though. It had a kind of mystic air around it, not just because of all the focus on the scary and the spooky, but on the reversal of normal rules/standards once the sun went down.
On any other day of the year wandering the streets in the dead of night with only your other kid friends would have been frowned upon, but on Halloween that kind of thing was totally a-ok. The whole world felt like it took on a different quality. Normally benign areas felt more uncertain. Neighbors would decorate or devote themselves to trying to scare you. Older kids and teenagers were even more threatening than normal. And to top it all off, you got to bring home a massive haul of sugary candy to keep the local dentists in business. I have so many memories of lugging a pillowcase full of candy house to house, passing by other convoys of kids to get the scoop on the best houses (and how to avoid the dreaded ācarrot sticks and ranchā or āpopcorn ballā families). I remember having a heightened awareness of anything scary, unnatural, or otherwise eerie. It was great.
As a teenager, I didnāt really party at all, so Halloween mostly just turned into me playing video games at home alone, but that too was another example of how there was a socially accepted subversion that night. Crazy parties, teenagers doing stupid things - that was expected and tolerated much more on Halloween.
Now well-past those years Halloween mainly means enjoying the beautiful weather and enjoying scary movies, books, and games. I still really like that, but thereās no longer much of a subversion to experience. Maybe the idea that this is the time of year to indulge in frightening and disturbing art is a subversion, and thatās still a lot of fun.
I tend to not do much for most holidays, but that might be changing a bit.
My previously long-distance partner moved in late last year. Theyāre obviously new to the area and want to live a little. So, we found an outdoor Halloween event earlier this week - it was really fun. A big farm had been heavily decorated with a lot of not-scary Halloween themed decorations. Kinda like going to a big Christmas light show, but for Halloween.
Iām really glad we went. It made this Halloween very memorable.
One thing I really miss with my dad having moved to North Carolina is our Halloweens together. My dad and step mom had thousands of dollars worth of animatronic Halloween decorations and every year Iād go over to set them up and then sit around either passing out candy or watching one of them pass out candy so we could see all the costumes that year. We were often the favorite house of the night by the neighborhood kids.
I had about a dozen trick-or-treaters total on Halloween night. I consider that to be a pretty low turnout because my neighborhood is full of kids of all ages, but I think in this area trunk-or-treating is the dominant practice. I definitely donāt want to āgood olā daysā about Halloween but it does bum me out that thereās a lot of kids who arenāt having those same adventures. I never experienced a trunk or treat, but I imagine I would have considered it nothing more than a side quest - a rich source of candy but definitely auxiliary to a neighborhood crawl.
