[Willie Green]

I don't know why, but last night was the slooooowest Halloween I've ever experienced in my life. We had less than a dozen kids in 4~5 groups come through our neighborhood last night. (Just a fraction of what we had last year.)

The weather was a little chilly, but still pretty clear and calm. Heck, even 6" of snow wouldn't stop the trick-or-treaters back in Pennsylvania.

I don't know what happened.
But oh well... tough beans for the kiddies.
That's just more candy for Willie Green to polish-off while watching football.

[Dec31,1999]

It wasn't the PC police that turned Halloween into a harvest festival, it was the Christians. Oh, nevermind... :)

[bluelowrider57]

To tell you the truth Halloween does in fact have satanic roots, dating back to cults such as the early Celts, who "invented" bonfires, and others.

[sfRummygirl]

I think two or three things is going on here. A lot of families don't let the kids trick or treat out of fear of violence or not knowing the neighbors anymore. That's one thing.
Then there is the PC police about the costumes. Not wearing a 'violent' costume or sexist one.
Then there are the folks who are against the Pagan aspects of the holiday. These are usually a different group of folks then the above two. Christain families, or Orthodox Jewish ones.
However, not all Christain families stated above forbid the kids from trick or treating. They emphasize the harvest part, but with costumes that are not witch related and stuff like that.
I know alot about all of this, as I am a former witch. (I'm Christian now). And it is true, folks, that halloween is very much turning into a religious holiday. I live in San Francisco, and trust me, if you want to see what is coming your way soon......
Anyhoo, my two cents is, I support kids having a blast with their imagination. But I would make sure the religious overtones wouldn't creep in.
So, it's about two or three factors that are causing the shift in the holiday.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Very light here. Cultural confusion about the meaning of holidays, along with the heavy slasher/horror film emphasis of the media, has rendered Halloween unintelligible to some people. The combination of All Hallows Eve (does anyone understand Catholicism/Christianity in America anymore?)
and the Celtic/Druid Samhain may be too much for most undereducated Americans, brainwashed by the NEA, to grasp.
The Monster Fest and Heavy Metal "Satanism" promoted by the media has sort of ruined things for children.

[sweetliberty]

I didn't want my kid at Halloween parties either, but if the schools celebrated, I kept her home. I didn't expect the school to change their policies to accommodate me! What a bunch of stinkin' crybabies!

[FlyVet]

Only 33 kids to my door this year, I counted.

145-count Snickers large economy-style mixed bag of candy, minus FlyVet's 5-share that he slopped down before the doorbell started ringing = 140, ended up with 107. And now I'm slopping down more Starbursts. I had 40-some kids last year, and this is a young, mini-boom neighborhood.

[SamAdams76]

Little League and midget football were the only sports. Parents never went to practices and weren't expected at games. We had to come in when it got dark and frankly, our parents preferred we didn't come in before that.

Those sentences sum up my childhood in a nutshell. I was growing up during the late 1960s and early 1970s and it was exactly like that. A typical summer vacation morning, I'd get up just after sunrise, grab a bowl of cold cereal and would be out the door before my mother could find me something to do around the house. Yes, if a kid hung around the house in those days, he was likely to have a broom shoved into his hands and put to work.

I'd hang out with my friends all day at the playground, the ballpark, the marshlands down the street or if it was particularly hot, we'd just sit in somebody's shaded backyard picnic table playing an all-day game of Risk or Monopoly with a portable transistor radio blaring out Top40 songs while mothers handed sandwiches and cold drinks out the window (so we wouldn't come inside and mess up the house with our dirty shoes). Finally the streetlights would come on and it would be time to go home where we would get a plate of cold chicken heated up for us and maybe get an hour or two in front of the TV to see the "Partridge Family" or "Brady Bunch" before heading off to bed, maybe even a Godzilla movie on one of those UHF stations - our only TV of the day.

I miss those carefree days. And kids of today never got to experience them. Instead, everyting, and I do mean everything, is heavily supervised. Parents not only drive their children to soccer or Little League practice (even if it is just down the street) but they insist on lugging their lawn chairs to every single minute of every single practice and/or game. Parents even go into the movie theatres to watch "kid" movies with their kids. My parents would never consider that - they'd give me a few dollars and I'd walk the 30 blocks with my friends (or maybe my little brother) to see "Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" or whatever kid's movie was showing at the time. And if my mother did tag along, I'd feel...uncomfortable.

Is it any wonder that kids of today are still living with their parents into their 20s and 30s?

[tiki]

I remember Halloween in the '60s, we had so much fun and got so much candy. A few years ago anti-Halloween people were rife in our town but it's turning around. I'm glad that my grandkids got to trick or treat and go to more than one Halloween carnival and play games. So many Christians seem to think evil dwells in every corner and enjoyment of life is sinful.

[Mo1]

Long ago, when this baby boomer was a child, Halloween was for everyone. Planning your costume took weeks: collecting wigs and makeup; making blood from ketchup. Costumes came from the five-and-dime or were assembled from old clothes. We cherished the magic of transformation ... becoming Annie Oakley or Superman; a soldier or cheerleader; Cinderella or an astronaut.

I miss the old days ..

BTW .. we didn't have many trick or treaters either ..

[One_American]

We went out trick-or-treating with the purpose to build up a serious pile of good candy. Anyone who dared give us apples or pennies or anything else deemed 'bogus', their house was immediately subjected to an egging, shaving creaming, toilet papering, bar soaping of the windows, and/or flaming bag of fresh dog crap on the porch attack. That was standard operating procedure in my neighborhood.

[Smokin' Joe]

All Hallowes' eve, later Halloween is the day before All Saints' Day in the Catholic Religion.

My 4 year old Granddaughter and I went out (she as a Care Bear), me as...well, me, and despite the cold covered about 12 blocks. She loved it, trick or treaters were few and far between, (probably due to temperatures in the 20's) and we returned with her plastic pumpkin loot bucket overflowing. I wouldn't trade all the tea in China for smiles like those...

[Vicki]

We had one. Used to have about 60.