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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   2932 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for November 2, 2022

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Halloween went well. I have two little kids, the older one picked out the costumes for both this year.

It did rain during Halloween, but I think this had an interesting side effect of resetting Halloween expectations. For the previous two years people had been putting their candy out on tables in their driveway, cuz COVID. Well with the rain no one wanted to do that, so it was back to walking up to houses.

As a parent I'd prefer my kids to have to deal with some awkward social situations rather than get a boatload more candy.

We always put candy in a bowl on our front porch, so we can all leave home and my kids can go trick-or-treating with their cousins around their house instead.

We had the bowl stolen this year, though; first time that's ever happened. Our cameras didn't get a good look at whoever ran up and grabbed it, but it wasn't taken until after all the trick-or-treating was done, and none of our decorations (handmade, all with sentimental value, one which took a lot of work and parts) or jack-o-lanterns were touched, so the perpetrator must have been a relatively nice person, as scum-sucking thieves go. I don't think I'd be bothered if they'd only taken the candy, but that decade-old cheap plastic bowl was something we use all the time, the only one we had in its size, and I'm annoyed that we had to buy a replacement.

We put out a pumpkin, left our porch lights on, and noticed that a lot of families were going past our house. Left a bowl out under the porch light after that and most candy got taken.

My girls liked going trick or treating, though about 2/3 of houses just left out bowls.

This was our first holloween in the new house with an actual front porch. We carved a pumpkin and put up some decorations. We knew form our neighbors ahead of time that we weren't really a high traffic area due to how easements and foot traffic work but we were disappointed to not have a single trick or treater this year. I was looking forward to being on the adult end of a ritual I quite enjoyed as a kid. Oh well, more candy for us.

A sort-of mistaken costume is a now a in-joke in my family.

One year, while handing out candy, my father was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster. He and my mom had set up on the front porch.

My father asked a seemingly-shy, small child, who had approached, “Happy Halloween — would you like some candy?”

The child enthusiastically replied, “Thanks, Einstein!”

It took my parents a moment to work out the child had meant “Frankenstein”, and was not being condescending.

Wait until they realize that Einstein was the monster after all. Messing with time, and all.

A not very bright friend of mine in college got stoned one time and was trying to express some kind of stoner thought about relativity, but kept referring to Einstein as "Frankenstein" and was confused why I kept laughing my ass off at him.

I typically set up shop at the end of my driveway and refuse to give anyone candy until they perform the ritual threat. If there is precipitation, I'll open the garage and sit just inside. I prefer this to answering my door repeatedly, and this way I can talk to the adults who stick to the sidewalk while sending their children up to doorsteps. It's not a huge time commitment since trick-or-treating generally runs from 6pm to 8pm where I live, and we do get a couple hundred visitors in that span so I would be answering my door every few moments anyway.

This year there were a shockingly large number who had forgotten the ritual threat. "Do you have something to say to me?" was met with "Happy Halloween?" and "Please?" almost as often as "Trick or treat!" The habit of just-walk-up-and-take-candy set in remarkably quickly with some of these kids, I guess is what I'm saying. I assume this is a weird COVID-19 thing but maybe not.

I saw one person doing what you suggested, and it looked like she was having fun: she had set up a metal fire pit in the middle of her driveway that had a cheerful fire burning, and naturally everyone was drawn to her. I'll have to try something similar myself when the kids are too old to trick-or-treat. Sounds a lot more fun then constantly being interrupted by the doorbell. I'll probably set up a little speaker with "Grim Grinning Ghosts".

I too noticed that (for the limited number of kids I handed out candy to) many of them didn't say trick-or-treat. I made sure to coach my little girl before every stop. About halfway through the night she got the idea and didn't need prompting. Where will we be if we fail to pass on our sacred traditions?

Do you know the history of the saying?

There appear to be similar ritual threats in the (antiquated now) Slavic tradition of kolyadovanie.

They weren't ritualistic at all. Getting a load of snow down the chimney or finding your door blocked by firewood in the morning were legitimate outcomes of not providing the treats just 150 years ago.

To the best of my knowledge, nobody knows the origins of the saying for certain. It appears in pop culture no later than the early 1950s and is hypothesized to have originated with what some perceived as excessive "tricking" taking place during Halloween in the early 20th century.

We had to coach my 6-year-old at every single house to remember to say "trick or treat" and "thank you." I think some kids just get so excited that their little brains shut down.

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