When I was a child, Halloween was one of the most coveted and anticipated holidays of the fall season. My dad Bah Humbugged his was through Christmas, but not Halloween. Spooks, stories, goblins and gorries, I can remember my dad saying. We would searchhigh and low for things just laying around, to create our porch masterpiece, the Jack-o-Lantern. Opening cans and jars of stuff in the pantry. Climbing trees to get moss and picking up straw. So much fun searching. Then came the transformation of our garae into the neighborhood haunted house. My poor mom, eventually the haunted house migrated to encompass not only the garage but also the kitchen and dining room too. You never ran out to buy things you used creativity and whatever you had lying around the house and yard. You knew your neighbors, had costume contests and enjoyed pleasant tricks along with treats.
Nowadays, people use stencil cutouts for Jack-o-lanterns, and I will admit that we have succumb, but we will be changing that for next year. People don't really know their neighbors, so there isn't really that mystery of who is under that costume. My anticipation for Halloween is changing. Sadly. So for Changing the way we do, Halloween 2012 is on the list.
During the past years, we have had contests going in multiple states and cities to see who had the most trick or treaters. It was a highlight to the night. Everyone gets involved. Some of us even get up on our roofs to throw down candy to the treaters. Sadly this year, we did not participate. Due to our consumerist challenge, we did not turn our porch light on to hand out treats.
So how was Halloween 2011 for Chez Stoneford?
We took our children to the library and let them hear stories, play games and enjoy the spirit. We carved pumpkins after our visit to the farm, they "died" over the course of the week. We decorated the house with what decorations we had and made some crafts to decorate next year even more. We had friends over to join us too, and a yummy birthday dinner for Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer.
All 4 of us dressed in costume to go trick or treating in the cold and pouring rain. We armed ourselves with umbrellas and boots. We were going to make the best of 2011 Hallows. With the few houses that had their porch lights on, the kids rang and banged away. "Trick or Treat" Monk and the Edge would say before someone would come to the door. It was cute. But as we walked uphill both ways...saw parents driving their kids from house to house...saw kids unchaperoned...and speeders on the streets...the cold and wet got to us after about an hour. We came home, but the kids had fun.
So, now our porch light stayed off but that didn't stop the banging on our door even upwards of 11:00pm. Maybe it's just a few of us that follow the etiquette of Halloween, but you don't bother people who don't have their lights on and you don't dare knock on a door after 9pm, and if their light is on you are pleasant ...say thank-you and Happy Halloween. A couple of the times we opened the door to check to see if the weather was lightening up, but we were met by a race of people to our door and when we told them "I'm sorry our porch light is off and we do not have any candy" we were returned with not-so-nice pleasantries. F-bombs and other 4 letter words and the occasional "they ain't got no candy" was appalling by children of all ages. Excuse me. These parents were in their cars and condoning this behavior. This can't be the generation of tomorrow. This can't be the generation of parents today. It took everything out of me not to go knock on the window and tell them what profanities their children were saying.
Hopefully Halloween 2012 will be so much better, but despite it all we had a nice holiday and hope you did too!
Nowadays, people use stencil cutouts for Jack-o-lanterns, and I will admit that we have succumb, but we will be changing that for next year. People don't really know their neighbors, so there isn't really that mystery of who is under that costume. My anticipation for Halloween is changing. Sadly. So for Changing the way we do, Halloween 2012 is on the list.
During the past years, we have had contests going in multiple states and cities to see who had the most trick or treaters. It was a highlight to the night. Everyone gets involved. Some of us even get up on our roofs to throw down candy to the treaters. Sadly this year, we did not participate. Due to our consumerist challenge, we did not turn our porch light on to hand out treats.
So how was Halloween 2011 for Chez Stoneford?
We took our children to the library and let them hear stories, play games and enjoy the spirit. We carved pumpkins after our visit to the farm, they "died" over the course of the week. We decorated the house with what decorations we had and made some crafts to decorate next year even more. We had friends over to join us too, and a yummy birthday dinner for Mr. Bacon Bringer Homer.
All 4 of us dressed in costume to go trick or treating in the cold and pouring rain. We armed ourselves with umbrellas and boots. We were going to make the best of 2011 Hallows. With the few houses that had their porch lights on, the kids rang and banged away. "Trick or Treat" Monk and the Edge would say before someone would come to the door. It was cute. But as we walked uphill both ways...saw parents driving their kids from house to house...saw kids unchaperoned...and speeders on the streets...the cold and wet got to us after about an hour. We came home, but the kids had fun.
So, now our porch light stayed off but that didn't stop the banging on our door even upwards of 11:00pm. Maybe it's just a few of us that follow the etiquette of Halloween, but you don't bother people who don't have their lights on and you don't dare knock on a door after 9pm, and if their light is on you are pleasant ...say thank-you and Happy Halloween. A couple of the times we opened the door to check to see if the weather was lightening up, but we were met by a race of people to our door and when we told them "I'm sorry our porch light is off and we do not have any candy" we were returned with not-so-nice pleasantries. F-bombs and other 4 letter words and the occasional "they ain't got no candy" was appalling by children of all ages. Excuse me. These parents were in their cars and condoning this behavior. This can't be the generation of tomorrow. This can't be the generation of parents today. It took everything out of me not to go knock on the window and tell them what profanities their children were saying.
Hopefully Halloween 2012 will be so much better, but despite it all we had a nice holiday and hope you did too!
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