The Halloween Crisis

As Halloween approaches I am getting excited as it is the start of the holiday season. Halloween is a fun time for kids and brings the community together. Sadly the Halloween we used to know is dying out and being replaced by a fake, superficial, and commercialized event.

Image: Courtesy of YMCA St. Louis

When I was a kid and even in movies, TV shows, and advertisements today, Halloween is and was an event where all the kids would dress up and go out with their parents to collect candy from the neighbors. Neighbors would decorate their houses, families would have jack-o-lanterns outside, and kids and families would try and remember the houses with the best candy. Below is an example of what I am talking about.
 

 

Sadly this Halloween above has been dying out. Lazy and paranoid helicopter parents have ruined Halloween. Instead of kids going door to door and collecting candy, the kids are taken to the mall or church events where they walk around and collect small amounts of candy in indoor settings. These parents are claiming that it is safer since we live in a terrible world. The reason Halloween can be unsafe is due to parents who let children that are too young go off by themselves because the parents are too lazy to walk the neighborhood with their children. When you go to other events you aren’t home handing out candy to kids who are working hard and having some real fun. Another bad Halloween practice that Americans have been using is where the parents drive the kids in a car door to door.
 

Image: Courtesy of Wal-Mart

I would encourage everyone to truly celebrate Halloween!  Decorate this Halloween, handout candy to those children who stop by, throw a costume party, or invite friends over to carve pumpkins. If you have kids, please take them around the neighborhood. It is time restore Halloween to what it once was.

You can check out the pumpkins my wife and I carved this year at The Bianco's.