Final Halloween observations

 

We had a grand total of four trick-or-treaters, which I strongly believe is less about Halloween and more about our dark neighborhood, the dearth of kids living here and where our house is located. Luckily our neighbors also hand out stuff (although it is 1991 "Star Trek: TNG" cards which they've probably had since they were new) but it's hard to see our porch light from the road. This year and last I've strung orange lights in our side window to draw kids down. Last Halloween we had a Black Friday Walmart Run of kids compared to this year. We had zero trick-or-treaters in Colorado, which was fine by me, with the beings that did show up on our doorstep year-round. But the years before, we had tons of kids. We had so many in 1999 that Hawk had to go buy more candy. That was fun. And our weather was nice and warm, for Oct. 31, last night. The news had lots of kids out. They just weren't here.

My hope had been to see what kids were wearing for trick-or-treat (answer: Dash, Dorothy, Batman, Lion) and to be able to testify that Halloween is alive and thriving. I know that it is but my thought was to use my personal experience to talk about it.

What we did experience was that at all the houses we visited, people were visibly disappointed that Z was the first, and maybe only, trick-or-treater. A few people said that they hope Halloween wasn't on the wane. As a witch, it was naturally my duty to reassure them ;) so I shared my thoughts about the dark nieghborhood w/ no sidewalks for any children to use. The woman at the last house strongly agreed with that assessment; the only streetlight in the neighborhood is a lot away from her and when she moved in 24 years ago, she asked when the other streetlights were coming. Apparently the homeowners association was pissed off that they even had to erect that one. *sigh*

Kids love Halloween. I think that's a good, safe general statement to make. It's not until kids encounter adults who teach them it's "evil" or make conditions unsafe for them to trick-or-treat that they begin not to like it, if they begin to think that way. There are certainly enough adults who love Halloween.

Besides, The Steelers were on MNF so maybe people stayed close to their home base.

As I said before, I don't think the traditional American Halloween is going anywhere any time soon. What kind of witch would I be if I didn't keep the faith?