It’s that time of year again. The time of year where the leaves change color and slowly start to fall, where businesses start selling hot chocolate, pumpkin patches and cider mills are busy with customers, and the fall jackets start to come out of the closet.
Agreeably, fall is one of the most beautiful seasons, what with its leaves turning magnificent colors and hearing the crunch of them under your feet as you walk.
Or maybe that’s not your favorite part about fall? Cause it’s not my favorite part either. I adore Halloween more rather than the leaves or the cooler weather.
Scary movies, haunted houses, costume parties, free candy, and scary stories. Fall is eerie, and what could be better than getting scared and feeling that adrenaline rush?
Though most people don’t exceptionally love being scared like I do, there’s the costume aspect as well. The best part of dressing up is getting into it and “going all out”. It annoys me to see kids wear their street clothes on the night of Halloween and a mask or the girls wear cat ears as their costume and go door to door just to get the goods.
Don’t we remember what it was like as a kid? Sitting at home getting ready and having your mom take a thousand and one pictures of you. Watching it get darker and darker outside as you nag at your parents that you are ready to go. As the siren finally blares on that October 31st night signaling the start of trick-or-treating, and then it really begins.
You bound around dark streets while other children are running door to door and are comparing costumes. Your parents trudge behind you and tell you to slow down and remind you that there is time. And you do the most important job of all; making sure that every house in the neighborhood is hit, because none can be left behind until that siren blares again. You go door to door and say the phrase that has been engraved in your head and you have been waiting to use.
“Trick-or-treat!”
So what has changed since then? Amicably, your costume choices begin to change. Instead of picking you’re favorite superhero or being the prettiest Disney Princess, you begin picking what looks best, what’s more popular at that time or what may be more humorous to you and your friends. And then in middle school and high school some people stop dressing up altogether, a personal choice I suppose. But the costumes for girls the costumes get smaller and for most they begin to get less attention to detail put into them.
And when are you too old for trick-or-treating? I believe that being a senior this may be my last year attempting to trick-or-treat. After that I’ll retire, and take my kids one day to enjoy what I enjoyed once as a kid.
Granted, there was an incidence my sophomore year. I was dressed up as Sandra Dee from Grease, my friend Brooke was Raggedy Anne, and my friend Anna was little “dead” riding hood. We had a great time dressing up and doing our make up and hair and getting ourselves into character. However, at one house we were denied candy.
Denied candy? Who has ever heard of such a thing on Halloween? But we were, and the lady just stared at us coldly waiting for us to leave. We were too old she had told us. So maybe some think that as teenagers it’s time to hang the cap up.
But I believe that we only have a few years left until we’re adults, so why not dress up? Why not channel your inner adolescence and have fun with people you care about? Throw a scary movie marathon, go to a haunted house with your friends, try apple bobbing, eat too many caramel apples, throw a bonfire, tell a scary story, carve a pumpkin with that special someone, or play a prank. Why not?
