HALLOWEEN

Today's statistics on what adults spend for Halloween costumes was alarming. Where do they wear them? No one I know is giving a Halloween party, but then I am not a young single. Is that the market for those expensive costumes? My celebration of the day is to walk upstairs and fetch three or four Halloween decorations to put on the porch for the little munchkins to know that this is still a house that gives out candy.

The decorations are a witch statue, about 14 inches tall, a little pottery pumpkin with a votive lite inside, a pumpkin scarecrow nut cracker, and another little thing that should work to bubble up a candle light which doesn't work. Tomorrow, those things will be put back in their closet home from whence they came, for next year.

I know none of the children on the street though they usually seem to know me. I guess I figured out the reason. The little darlings' faces are not seen by me the once I year that I see their little costumed bodies. Even if I did see their faces, by next year they won't look the same. I won't remember their names, and I won't really care. All they want is the candy and all I really want is to give them their tooth rotting candy and send them on to the next house, meanwhile hoping that the evening will end quickly and that I won't find raw eggs on my car in the morning.

The begging custom has been odious to me since my children were of age to Trick or Treat. I used to tell them that I will buy all the candy they want if they will just stay home. I remember a cute little 7 year old, freezing, nose running, who was almost in tears. He just wanted to go home. I asked him why he didn't go home and he said his mother and sister were waiting for the candy and told him not to come home until his pillow case was half full. It makes one wonder whom the candy really feeds. For shame on the adults who can't buy their own candy rather than push little kids out on a cold night. I suppose global warming has made that a bit easier since it is rarely freezing on October 31 in the East. Somehow that still doesn't justify sending kids out to beg.