Halloween

 

The annual sweet orgy that is Halloween is upon us once more.

           Some people take the whole idea to extreme and decorate their houses as if it will protect them from harm when the dead rise! The owners of a house around the corner from where I live have so many decorations it looks like a store. On their lawn there are two huge air-filled Halloween figures, a witch and a pumpkin, always moving on windy days, on top of all the other black and orange things on their porch and on their front steps, from pumpkins to skeletons, etc. If nothing else it attracts attention. As I was walking by the house a couple of days ago I wondered for a moment if the back cat on the top step was real. It is not, but it makes you take a second look.

          In my local mall, for a week before the big day, unusual shoppers attract attention. There are witches, complete with the black teeth, white ghosts without faces, and even an ogre. I suppose the idea is to attract families with young children and to remind the rest of us to buy our candy supplies.

          And it makes kids dream of people generously filling up their plastic pumpkins, their bags or their pillow cases (as was mostly the case when I was young all those years ago!). All of them hoping they will get more goodies than their siblings and their friends. All they have to do is get dressed up. No wonder kids think this is the next best thing to heaven.

          As I was planning what to prepare for all those costumed visitors this year, I decided to try something different (without going as far as the local woman who is reputed to give out individually wrapped pickles!) and decided that apples instead of sweets would be a nice change of pace. I thought parents would no doubt be grateful, but my 12 year-old grandson pointed out that it would defeat the purpose of the whole evening. He said that his parents gave him an apple almost every day, while Halloween was meant to provide the sweet pleasures he so seldom gets to enjoy.

          I didn’t have the guts to expand on the cause of cavities, but then I suppose that eating sweets to excess once a year is not the end of the world if he eats properly the rest of the time which I know he does.

          Then my son told me that he didn’t like kids getting apples for Halloween because of the stories going around about needles (or even worse) being pushed into the fruit. So, that clinched it. I’m preparing an array of sweets to distribute to my Halloween visitors this year as I have always done.

           After all, you can’t go wrong with the tried and true.