Halloween Memories!

My second favorite holiday is Halloween! It doesn’t even stand a chance to my favorite holiday Thanksgiving, but every year second comes first for me.

Halloween has always been that one day of the year where children are treated like children. They dress up in fancy costumes and it’s absolutely normal. They get a chance to scare people (even adults) and it’s anticipated. Children all around the country, rich & poor, white & black, (and even now, the 21st century version of stating the obvious differences while over stating that its o.k. to be what we are…..) Christian and Muslim all get together and play dress up for a night. If one is poor, its o.k. face paint, paper bags and construction paper are cheap. No matter, every child has the opportunity to get together and collect free candy from neighbors. I have even seen children wearing street clothes, all that they carried was their favorite pillowcase.

This year I didn’t beg for candy, this year I didn’t even dress up. This year, I purchased 2 bags of candy (far less than what was needed) and sat outside with my 18 month old son. The first 3 receivers of my offerings were called over by me and my son. They didn’t even see us sitting there with a big bowl of bright candy, we had to shout “ free candy, free candy, come on over”. After about a half hour little children finally saw us sitting there and came over with a mixture of the ‘happy free candy’ face and the ‘can I trust this guy’ face.

My little boy met every trick or treater with happy smiles, a drawn out “hiiiiii” and a little wave. It was excellent.

For the first time I was able to feel the excitement, the amazing feeling of giving free candy away to children on Halloween. It was exhilarating.

I can’t wait for next year.