I'm a Halloweenie

Getting ready to TorT in the 'hood.

I don't know why I have such an issue with Halloween. I loved Halloween growing up. It was probably my favorite holiday after Christmas. My mother always dressed up like a witch, complete with her front tooth blacked out. She made up special bags with extra candy for my best friends when they stopped by. And my birthday is November 1, so I always had cool, Halloween-themed parties. Frequently friends would come over after trick or treating and spend the night if it happened to be on a weekend. (More on that later.)

[Side note: It was during these trick-or-treating years that I learned to like Special Dark chocolate bars. Back in the day there were not 20 million types of fun-size candies to hand out, so the Hershey's Miniatures bag was a staple. If you liked Special Dark, you could end up with a ton of extra candy without even having to trade for it. Win!]

As an adult, do I love Halloween still?

Um... Not so much.

I'm not exactly sure when Halloween lost its luster. But I have been giving this a good bit of thought, and it comes down to these facts of adult life:

October 31 is generally cold. (Like it was this year.)

And sometimes it rains. (Like it did this year.)

And it's more often than not on a school night. (This year it was Friday. Yay! It was also the final home football game of the season, and I have a varsity player. Crap!)

And it's hard to walk around the neighborhood drinking a beer and mingling with the other parents and be at your house handing out candy at the same time. (I hate it when a "slacker parent" desire conflicts with a "good parent" requirement.) 

So here is my brief plan for improving Halloween and making it more adult-friendly. Because let's all admit ... Halloween ceased to be about the kids a looooooong time ago.

[Side note: I'm all about process improvement. If you want to see my plan for improving the last month of school, click here.]

1. Make Halloween the first Saturday in August.

It's still warm. You can have a regular dinner at a normal time and still have the choice of trick-or-treating in the daylight or dark. School is (generally) not in yet. It's still warm. It will always be on a weekend. It will not overlap with a home high school football game. And it's still warm. (Did I say that already?)

And it

2. Carve watermelons instead of pumpkins. 

Or cantaloupes. Or honeydews. You can actually eat it when you're done. Bonus! Leave the pumpkin in the can where it belongs.

3. Have teenagers hire themselves out as candy hander-outers.

First of all, it keeps them from trick-or-treating which, let's face it, they're too old for. If your age ends with "-teen" you're too old.

With a teenager firmly planted at the house, parents can walk around and socialize, and candy gets handed out. Really, it's a win-win. This year I left a basket of candy on the porch and also carried a bag of candy around with me. So if you came to my house, you got candy. And if you saw me on the street and you had a particularly cute costume or if I was already on my second beer, you probably got to double-dip. 

4. Make eating candy and then putting the empty wrapper back in the bag a universal punishable offense.

They may not realize it, but this makes it much harder for their parents to look in the bag and see what is actually there and ripe for stealing. Not. Cool. This could be implemented even if Halloween stays on October 31 if we parents will band together and make it happen. Just do it!

Who has other ideas for improving Halloween? Post a comment and let me know!