As I was digging through my garage the other day trying to find my boxes of Halloween decorations, I started to reminisce about the good ol’ days. When I was a kid, decorating for Halloween consisted of throwing a sheet over the light post to make it look like a ghost. Nowadays, you practically need a storage unit to hold all the faux tombstones and skeletons who dance or moan when someone walks by. Halloween was just one day when I was little – October 31st. Today, the stores are stocking their shelves with candy corn and economy-sized bags of mini candy bars at the beginning of September. There was even a petition awhile back trying to get people to switch Halloween to the last Saturday of October. While I admit having no kids show up to school the next day with a sugar “hangover” does sound like a good idea, this change would seriously mess with my habit of going through the kids’ candy while they’re not home! (Mama needs her peanut butter cup fix.)

There are lots of other ways Halloween has changed, too.

Costumes

THEN: Oh, sure, you could buy a rigid plastic mask with the eyeholes jaggedly cut out of Raggedy Ann or Andy; but most times, we made our costumes out of stuff lying around the house. Your mom’s skirt, a scarf around your head, bangles and a black eyeliner painted on beauty mark = gypsy. Your dad’s flannel shirt and a pillowcase with a stick = hobo. That old brown paper Publix shopping bag and, voila, Indian vest. Yes, we had no concept of cultural appropriateness …but we were creative.

NOW: The costume discussions start months in advance. There are even THEMED group costumes, and don’t get me started on the amount of time we spend figuring out what the dog will wear.

Trick or Treating

THEN: You joined whatever random group of kids was out and about. If you ran into a friend and he told you that the house three blocks away had a cool haunted house and was giving out homemade cookies at the end, you went. As in, WE WENT INSIDE THE HOUSE… OF A STRANGER! Parents weren’t there to tell you it was not a great idea as they stayed home to pass out candy and drink their Long Island Iced Teas that they didn’t feel the need to cleverly re-name Witch’s Brew just for the day.

NOW: Kids are assigned groups where there are at least two parent volunteers who have the Waze app on their phone for efficient candy gathering. Parents, who are decked out in those THEMED group costumes, still drink their Witch’s Brew; they just hide it in their coffee tumblers so no one knows just how much they’re drinking.

Candy

THEN: Our haul consisted mainly of boxes of raisins, candy dots on paper, rolled pennies for our UNICEF box, and occasionally you would score a full-sized candy bar. We weren’t allowed to eat our treats until our parents checked them for razor blades or we took them to the hospital where they did free X-rays. Thankfully, all that radiation didn’t affect the yummy taste.

NOW: Parents still check candy, but now it is to see if it includes gluten, red dye 3, or artificial sweeteners. Candy is divided into two bags: one to keep but with the condition that the child is only allowed a ⅛-inch sliver every two weeks, and the other is sold to the dentist whom I am sure just turns around and gives to other kids to guarantee business. But, as long as I get my share of peanut butter cups, I don’t really care what the dentist does with it!