by John Hoffman
As I write this blog post on Halloween afternoon I am struck by the different ways I have experienced Halloween at various points in my life. When I was a kid it was all about excitement and unbridled access to candy for a couple of weeks. There was an independence thing going on too. In those days most kids went out trick or treating with no parents in tow. (In my neighbourhood, we didn’t say trick or treat, we called “Shell out, shell out the witches are out!” Haven’t heard that phrase in years.)We loved walking around the neighbourhood in the dark of night on our own. And I think that independent feeling was good for our development.
Then I outgrew Halloween and hardly paid any attention to it for years, except I began to hear concerns about safety. You were supposed to wear something white on your costume so drivers could see you. Black was frowned upon. And there was the safety of the candy, too. We’d hear stories about parents supposedly finding apples with razor blades in them, or candy that had been poisoned in some way. I’m pretty sure these were almost all urban legends. But, still, each year some policeman would be on the news advising parents to go through their kids’ candy and throw out anything suspicious or even anything that was homemade. And, of course, there were concerns from nutritionists, dentists and some doctors about the amount of candy kids were eating. At some point organizations started hosting these Halloween parties for kids as alternatives to trick or treating (and candy bingeing). That fizzled out after a few years.
Then I had children of my own. And Halloween became about helping my kids experience the fun and excitement that I had felt as a boy. And as I welcomed kids at the door or walked the streets with my boys, I began to realize something else. There was this community aspect to Halloween. People were out on the streets in bunches at times when the streets are usually empty. Neighbours who hardly ever spoke (or had maybe never spoken) to each other were saying hi and exchanging idle chit-chat. People would have short conversations at the door with kids they didn’t know. So the kids got some positive attention from neighbours and a little practice at idle banter with strangers. It felt really good. For one night of the year my kids and I felt more connected to our bigger neighbourhood.
When I was growing up I could have told you the family name of almost everyone on my street of 60-odd houses, and some of the nearby streets as well. Now I hardly know the names of anyone on my street. But I see many of them on Halloween, and I like that. It feels good to see the kids having a good time and people being friendly with each other. It’s good for kids to see that happening and to participate in it. Actually I wish we could create more events to encourage that kind of interaction to happen more often. Events that bring people out of their houses and into contact with neighbours would help create a collective sense of community and safety, which is really good for children, not to mention their fathers and mothers.
So, if your work schedule didn’t conflict, I hope you were able to enjoy Halloween with your kids this year. My wife and I are going to go out with the children from the Syrian family we are helping to support, as they experience their first Halloween. They are really excited and I’m going to enjoy that.
But, looking at the big picture, no matter what adult “issues” are discussed around Halloween (this year the hot topic was culturally insensitive costumes), I hope people can remember that, at the root of it, Halloween is a festival in the best sense of the word. By that I mean a time when people have fun and experience a sense of community. Whatever else happens as Halloween evolves, as I’m sure it will, I hope we can retain the part of it that brings people together, every October.