When you take a survey of how people feel about Halloween, you usually get answers like: “oh, I love to get dressed up and go to a party” or “I hate it. All that candy and the kids get crazy” or ” I shut my door and turn off the lights and hide”.
Here in Santa Cruz, CA the city has a huge parade and the kids get to go trick or treating to all the stores along the main street early in the evening.It is fun to see all the little ones dressed up but things can get a little rough later on when the big folks start partying in the street. The City even puts up a temporary fence around each tree and sculpture on the street.
Each of us has our own remembrances of Halloween. Mine is getting black all over my face from slobbering on the black mask. Also remembering my Dad hiding behind a tree to keep an eye on us as we went door to door. What is your memory?
Later I used to sneak candy out from under the bed where my children thought they were hiding it. In that way I could slowly and very cleverly, I thought, reduce the amount of candy each night. Later on I found out that they knew I was doing this but as long as I didn’t take out any of the real good stuff, I was OK.
One of the things I have notices about Halloween for both adults and children is that it can be a day or an evening of being someone else. You see a lot of spider men and super heroes because kids love the idea of being empowered because they mostly feel little and powerless. I once went to a Halloween party where we adults were to dress as our alter egos or our dark sides. One guy showed up in a baseball uniform which I thought was weird. There were lots of Draculas and Witches. I’m too shy to tell you what my costume was.
So share your favorite story about Halloween. I’m guessing that there is nothing greatly significant that we can gleam from these stories but they can be great fun…..and we lawyers need fun in our lives.