Flashback Friday ~ To Trick or Treat…that is the question?

It’s all about Halloween this week.

I don't answer all the question and I did a bit of rearranging but here’s my Flashback Friday…Trick or Treat y’all!

What  was Halloween like when you were growing up?

We did the traditional trick or treating. When we were little my mom would walk with us but when we got a bit older we would make trick or treat plans with friends and map out our strategy to make sure were hit all the best neighborhoods to ensure the biggest bang for our Halloween buck!

Halloween was a big treat that we always looked forward to. The best part was dumping out my bag and then sorting through the can at the end of the night and then seeing how long I could make the candy last.

Have you ever bobbed for apples or been on a hayride?

When my daughter was little she saw something on television about bobbing for apples. For several years after that she wanted to bob for apple on her birthday. Her birthday is in the spring. I am not sure why apple bobbing is traditionally considered a fall activity, I guess with fall being the harvest time for apples, but in the mind of a 11 year old apple bobbing can happen at any time of the year.

And it did for several years at birthday parties :)

 

For they Hayride, me and Muffinhead and Muffinhead’s mom had a lovely hayride at the fall Festival hosted by our church this past Sunday.

Yes, she is the cutes little bumblebee I have ever seen!

What types of costumes did you wear? Were they store-bought or homemade? Were there stipulations regarding costumes?

The only stipulation was that it was almost always homemade. We would scour our closets and mom’s remnant drawer and throw together whatever costume we could. I don't remember ever getting a store bought costume until I was a teenager and could pay for it myself.

Did you carve a jack-o-lantern?

Yea! That was the fun part. Since pumpkins were relatively inexpensive it was one of the activities that we did do with regularity. I remember making sketches and trying to come up with really scary or different designs for the jack-o-lantern each year.

How are your children's experiences similar or different to yours?

I think I may have shard my opinion about this previously. If there was such a thing as a parental do over I think one of them would be the observance of Halloween. I know that the foundation of Halloween, All Hallows Eve is based on the observance of All Saint’s Day and has it’s roots in Christianity. It would be wonderful if it had stayed that way, however as most things go in the secular world it very quickly moved away for what it was supposed to be and morphed into something that has no resemblance to what it was originally intended to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I love fall festival, pumpkin patches, trips to the mountains, apple cider, hay rides, corn maze’s and face painting. All of those things a wonderful and great fun.

My problem with Halloween is the very negative and evil overtones that get placed upon it. The evil one, in my opinion gets enough attention on a daily basis, we do not need to set aside a day to honor those scary and dark  attributes that most Christians struggle to avoid and remove from their life.

Plus I think it send the wrong message.

When I see sweet little children dressed up like the devil walking around with their little pitch forks and spiky tails it just grieves my heart. If you were the mom of a teen who regularly pushed the envelope as I was well it was a yearly battle that I eventually just threw in the towel on. The reoccurring themes of the grim reaper, slasher, scream or other blood and guts costumes were very unpleasant. It disturbed my heart back them and it bothers me now.

Several years ago we began to phase out the observance of Halloween by going to other functions such as our church fall festive or the other functions put on by local churches. Lots of churches in the area hosted a trunk or treat. This allowed my daughter to participate in trick or treating but also gave us some measure of control, not to mention it saved the angst of the aftermath as I would sort thought the candy and toss out those I felt were just not worth the risk.

This last point I think is one of the biggest differences. I remember hearing about Halloween candy being tampered with but I really didn't remember my mom sorting through my candy. When my children hit the streets for Halloween, it was a hard and fast rule that there was to be no consuming any candy during trick or treating unless it was from a select few of our neighbors. They knew who these people were and we would recite the list to make sure they understood who was safe and who was not.

Now since my son is out on his own and my DD is well past the age of actually wanting to go trick or treating we have settled into the habit of going out to dinner or catching a movie so we are away from the house during the majority of the trick or treating activity. If we do get home and there are still a few lingerers we just keep the porch light off and usually the kids just pass right by.

And the most important question: Do you like candy corn?

YES! What’s not to like?

What is your favorite (and least favorite!) Halloween candy?

Favorite would have to be the snack size snicker bar, least favorite would be, well all those folks out there who think peppermint candy and any other hard candy wrapped in cellophane is an appropriate Halloween treat, well let me set the record straight. If I can unwrap it and re wrap it then it gets immediate tossed into the trash. Not to mention it just isn't what kids or anybody wants to find in their trick or treat sack.

Chocolate…..Its what everybody want in there sack!!!

 

Well that’s it for me for this Flashback Friday, for more Trick or Treating fun y’all head over to Mocha with Linda and link up!

If you are hitting the sidewalks on Sunday y’all be careful out there and have fun!

Blessings

R