During my childhood Halloween, I had homemade costumes and trick-or-treated in my neighborhood. Costume dreaming and designing was a fun family affair. Neighborhood trick-or-treating fostered laughter and goodwill. Generations bonded.
Today, costumes are quickly purchased from convenience stores and trick-or-treating occurs at destination neighborhoods and malls. Gone is the working together on a costume. Gone is meeting your neighbors.
Now I am a grandmother. I have hundreds (I live in the Lakes) of children trick-or-treating at my home. I do not know any of them and they come in such mass, there is no neighborly connection.
What are the children absorbing? My parents don't have the time or desire to help me make a costume? Collect as much candy as possible with the least amount of effort? Neighborly interactions are unimportant?
Have times changed too much to have a Halloween filled with family and neighbors? What does today's generation think? Do you want an old-fashioned Halloween? How can it happen?
