Over the years, Halloween has become a major holiday in itself, one worthy of outrageous parties and get-togethers. According to Yahoo news, Americans will spend $8 billion on Halloween. (That seems a bit excessive, right?)
When did Halloween morph into such a national spending frenzy?
(Segue alert…Here I go into a “when I was young” story.)
When I was young (see, I warned you), we very rarely had store bought costumes. If we were lucky enough to have a purchased costume, it was one of those made out of cheap flame retardant fabric with a sweat-producing plastic mask. The fabric was always wrinkled beyond belief. The mask was held in place with two staples and a rubber band. It never lasted through a night of trick or treating. Fun times. I still coveted a store bought costume. (After some research, I found out that Collegeville was the maker of most of these vintage costumes and had the rights to cartoon characters, etc.) Granted there were no grandiose Halloween superstores back then. We browsed through TG&Y to compile our want list.
Our costumes were passed down from older cousins or we might have been able to buy just a plastic mask and improvise the rest of the costume. So, there were lots of ghosts and hobos in my memory…the easiest costumes to make. So, how did my sister score a complete Woody Woodpecker costume? (Note to self: Must ask mom why I had to go as a cat/bear.)
Living in the sticks like we did, trick or treating generally meant jumping in the truck and driving to grandma’s house (2 miles away) and a few neighbors (3-4 miles away) who were warned by our parents ahead of time that we would be dropping by. Once or twice, we were lucky enough to be invited by town friends to go with them. Most of the time it was low key. If we got a popcorn ball and a candied apple (made by grandma), we were excited.
It may be sounding to some that we were neglected and deprived. Really, not so. Halloween just wasn’t that big of deal. It was a fun time, don’t get me wrong, but we weren’t planning our costumes and parties a year in advance. If anything, we grabbed a mask out of the toy box and just jumped in the truck for an impromptu trick or treating at grandma’s.
So, where am I going with all this? I really don’t know except I still remember those days of depravity fondly. I wish I had a sticky popcorn ball right now.
I have two pumpkins by the front door with a couple of pots of mums. I will light up these cool luminaries that the godkids made us. (Their mother is the little princess pictured above.)
I won’t spend hundreds of dollars at Pottery Barn to deck out the house. I won’t spend upwards of $200 on a racy witch costume.
If I could get by with it, I would bake cookies and make candied apples to pass out but I know that diligent parents would make their kids throw them in the trash.
I wish for the ghost of Halloweens past.
Bah humbug!
Happy Halloween!