Halloween Changes as You Grow Older
Halloween for adults is quite different than Halloween for children. Try to remember Halloween as a child and the myriad things to look forward to. There was the thrill and excitement of dressing up as your favorite person, place, or thing, wearing your costume to school and later in the evening (meaning 5 p.m.) going trick-or-treating, and filling your candy basket to its brim. The definition of Halloween hasn’t changed; but our actions and expectations have. We proclaim trick or treat, and ask for shots instead of candy. And although there are perks to being able to stay up past 10 p.m., with the change in bedtime comes a change in culture. This Halloween especially I observed changes that occurred in my friends mentality towards the holiday.
Halloween used to be an all-day event, but along with age comes the loss of excitement for certain holidays. College student still look forward to All Hallows Eve, but our enthusiasm is now geared towards how “trampy-and-trashed” we can get. Girls prance around in freezing cold weather wearing less than they sleep in. Each year, less layers and more skin is shown. Boys’ expectations for costumes increase; testosterone overrules the instinct to generically dress as superman or an astronaut. They compete to win the best costume.
Apathy though is not merely limited to Halloween. We receive less presents on Christmas, the Easter Bunny stops hiding eggs, and you no longer look forward to getting older on your birthday. Sure, some of us still carve pumpkins, go to corn mazes, and ceremonially dress up in costumes, but instead of being the greedy child that needs candy; we now look forward to the experience of the entire night spent with our friends. It is the event, not what you get.
This altered taste for Halloween may not be such as good thing. We no longer expect to fall asleep in a sugar coma, but there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps if we revisit our youth, it will help to inspire a stress free Halloween. If not, at least you get to be someone else for a night.
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