Halloween Tricks or Treats.

It’s hard to believe that Halloween is just a little over a week away. Now I know a lot of people that read my blog don’t like or celebrate Halloween for religious reasons and I don’t blame you for that. There are as many reasons not to celebrate this occasion as there are to celebrate it. I have always liked Halloween because I never viewed it from the religious perspective. Halloween has always been special for me for a number of reasons. And God knows what is in my heart no matter what I do.

First off my earliest memories of Halloween were going Trick-Or-Treating for UNICEF. When I was very young that is what we did. We went with our church group every year collecting money for needy children around the world. We wore positive costumes that were bright and uplifting. There were never any psycho killer or stripper outfits or anything like that. After we finished we would go to the home of one of the church members and have a celebration where we played games (including twister….read on), had homemade treats and read the Bible. And you thought this Hallelujah party was a new thing. Ha, We invented it.

As we grew older, we were allowed to Trick-Or Treat for candy and other goodies. We only went to the homes of people we knew and we often got things like unwrapped candies, homemade cookies, apples and oranges. There was even one guy that gave out silver dollars but you had to get there early if you wanted to get one of those. When he ran out he switched to full sized candy bars which were nice too. We enjoyed it because other than Christmas time, we didn’t have a lot of sweets around our house. It was fun being a child and going out with other friends in our neighborhood. It was simply a children’s social event.

My favorite house to stop at was Lurch’s house. Remember him from The Adams Family? Well he had a house that was about two blocks from where we lived. My father actually knew him and on a few occasions I actually got to see him. He didn’t look at all like he did in the TV show but he was a tall quiet man.

As time went on Halloween began to change. But it wasn’t the children that were changing it, it was the adults. There were pins in apples, poison candy, sick people trying to lure children into their homes and violence on the streets. I remember having to let my mother check all my candy before we could eat it. All that loose candy was thrown away along with any fruit and homemade goodies. If it didn’t look safe it was thrown out. There was even a local hospital where they would X-ray your candy for you to make sure there were no pins or razor blades in it. Sick sick sick.

But I still loved Halloween time. I loved the change of weather that usually accompanied the occasion. I liked seeing the little pirates, princesses and ballerinas. The costumes were still for the most part nice and unthreatening. When I joined the Navy I missed a lot of Halloweens. For a while there, very few children came around Trick-Or-Treating. Perhaps it was the neighborhoods where I lived or just the general feeling about the event.

About 29 years ago something else happened that reminded me how much I loved Halloween. It was actually 29 years ago from this Friday. I met my wife. And after a week of annoying her, she agreed to go out with me on the Friday before Halloween. We ended up going to a Halloween party and then out dancing. We were the only couple that didn’t wear a costume but we still had a great time. And after that we began going out on Halloween whenever I was home for the occasion. And we always dressed up when we went out. We even won a number of costume contests.

So that is why I love Halloween so much. Just like anything in life it can be either positive or negative depending on your attitude. I like making it positive because being a kid is hard enough these days. This year they are asking everyone at the Market to dress up since Halloween is on a Saturday. I Have decided to go as Uncle Fester from the Adams Family. I always loved that (original) show because the Adams’ always reminded me of my own family. You know…Mysterious and Spooky, all together Kooky. That’s us. And why Uncle Fester you ask? If you ever watched the show did you notice his attitude? He was almost always happy. No matter what was happening in his life he always tried to find the bright side. That’s me.

Last night I stopped by Hokus Pokus to get some items for my costume. This was my first visit to their little shop of horrors. Let me tell you, if you need a costume (and have lots of money) this is the place to go. They had more stuff in that store than I have ever seen. Most complete costumes start around 75 dollars which is why I decided to make my own. So I am standing at the counter trying to get a light bulb that will light up when I put it in my mouth. (hey I go all out) This counter just happens to be by some of the dressing rooms.

To my left I hear “What do you think?” There stood two girls who had come out of separate dressing rooms to show each other their outfits. One has picked out the Twister outfit which is a very short dress with large colorful dots all over it. It comes with a twister game so you can play twister while wearing the dress. At first I thought “cute idea” but then the second thought was that this girl was going to be playing twister in a mini skirt. Finally I put two and two together (I can be a little slow sometimes) and realized that when the pointer said “right hand on red” The game could get into the adult category due to the placement of some of the dots on her dress. See, even the children’s game twister can be a good or a bad thing.

Now the other girl was wearing the Swiss Miss outfit. That’s what I would call it anyway. Sounds innocent enough doesn’t it….Not so fast. If you saw the movie Miss Congeniality, picture the little dress that Sandra wore during the talent contest. If you didn’t see the movie it was a very short frilly dress that was designed to show of the undies which were actually not undies but shorts that were part of the outfit. So this girl is standing there in almost the identical dress from the movie except that instead of the shorts she just has on her (skimpy) underwear. Ahem, girl you are standing in a store in your underwear and there must be 20 people that can see you. I think I know who vying for “Miss Congeniality” at her party.

All I can say is that if your children are invited to a twister party this Halloween you might want to check out the details first. I’m just saying.

Have a great day,
Greg