Trick or Treat All Hallows’ Eve Arrives
Trick or treat, smell my feet; give me something good to eat…. What does it take to get defunct superheroes to mingle with drag queens, ghouls, and imposter celebrities? From Pumpkin Center, N.C. to Tombstone, Ariz, every child could tell you. Candy. The origins of Halloween may be traced to Pope Boniface IV when he established an anniversary dedicated to the Virgin Mary way back in 610 A.D. The church then moved Christian feast day to Nov. 1 from May 13 by Pope Gregory III in the eighth century in order to mark the dedication of the All Saints Chapel in Rome, establishing Nov. 1 as All Saints Day and Oct. 31 as All Hallows’ Eve; the feast day of All Souls Day, was then celebrated to commemorate those souls condemned temporarily to purgatory in 998 A.D. But all that means for you is more candy. Lets face it: Halloween is the quintessential holiday that every child looks forward to all year long, not because it allows you to change from mild mannered citizen into extraordinary superheroes, but because the objective is the fascination of every child on that once-a-year occasion when people hand out free candy. Free candy. You can barely believe the idea. All year long, it’s “no, you can’t have any candy.” But then on that one special night, Bam, you get all the candy you could ever wish for. Trash bags full of high octane sugars that keep you vamped for the next six or seven days. You go to all those nice neighborhoods with the big houses lit up with the spooky lawn décor because you know they hand out the full–size Snickers. And all you have to do is wear something you would never put on in public and walk door to door demanding candy or else. But demanding candy means having the right outfit. My mother always made us wear home–made costumes, reassuring us that Superman didn’t buy his cape at K-Mart and that Bat wings and pirate patches were more trustworthy if you made them yourselves. When I was 8 I went as Robin, and my older cousin, who was a few years older and much more developed than I, was Batman. He had the Bat mask with the felt ears that flopped down and the Bat logo that peeled off as the night wore on and carried with him a string repel gun that worked once or twice but then didn’t rewind. I remember thinking that dressing up like Robin was cool like on the TV, when they’re fighting the Penguin, but then you put on the dyed red undies over the green tights you borrowed from your mother’s dresser, and a red spandex pullover with a glued on Bat logo that no matter how hard you try still makes you look like a shriveled up nerd in a giant shirt with a yellow cape that you keep tripping on all night because you cannot see through the plastic mask that never fits right, and slices into your eye balls. In the end it’s a far cry from looking like the suave badass crime fighter pictured on the box that you envisioned yourself being. We stood out from the other kids who bought their “super attire” at the store with our gangly contraptions. Those kids who got costumes make up part of a survey from the National Retail Federation in the United States claiming that 53 percent of American consumers bought a costume for Halloween 2005, spending $38.11 on average at a spending total of $3.3 billion for the holiday. No scientific evidence to date upholds the correlation of spending $38.11 on a costume and the amount of candy received. But, it could be argued that it is easier and more enjoyable getting candy in a snug tight-perfect costume than running from door to door tripping on your cape while trying to get your mask to line up the tiny nostril slits over your nose. But you tolerate it, you move on. You can handle the name calling and the cute old ladies that always ask “and what are you supposed to be?” and you’re like, “I’m Robin, ace crime fighter from the dynamic duo. Duh!” It’s not easy being an 8-year-old boy and being caught wearing tights, but you do it. You trudge on in the face of death, spooks and ghouls, in order to obtain the ends for which the means suffice. You get the candy. You do what it takes because you know that by the end of the night you’re huffing around six trash bags full of teeth rotting pleasure, rudely kicking in the pumpkins of those scholarly academics who only hand out the little packs of raisins that you later use as cannon fodder on other people’s houses who also hand out nutritious goodies. These are the same people that should work at the Department of Homeland Security warning you to search your bag for pins and needles and razor blades hidden in those delicious chocolate morsels. Screw the threats, get the candy. You can be concerned with the fact that the early Celts believed the bright half of the year ended around Nov. 1, or on a moon-phase sometime near that date, referred to as Samhain (“Sow-in” or alternatively “Sa-ven”) meaning end of the summer. And that after the adoption of the Roman calendar with its fixed months, the date began to be celebrated independently on Oct. 31, the last day of the bright half of the year, and blah, blah, blah, some excuse to celebrate, blah, blah blah. Or you can remember the points that matter most: getting the candy. Some good news for those of you concerned with getting candy this year. In the United States, Halloween has become one of the most profitable holidays, next to Christmas. The National Confectioners Association reported in 2005 that 80 percent of adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters, which gives you roughly 108 million households for you to visit; the catch is that you’ll have some competition with some 93 percent of children estimated to go trick-or-treating this year. Pumpkins, costumes, and dead people: All you have to remember is get the candy.
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