Memories of Halloween

October 29, 2008 ↓ Comments (0)

When I was a kid we’d start trick-or-treating after school by about 4 pm. My brother and I would be so excited that we’d map out the neighborhood and plan out routes to collect from the most possible homes. We usually had to “check in” around 5 or 6 pm for dinner. I recall returning home with my pillow case half full of candy, dumping it out on the dining room table, and then heading back out in the cold, dark night for our evening collection.

There was a street in Glacier Hills, the neighborhood up the hill from my neighborhood, that had several houses in a row that would go all-out. The first house would host an annual Halloween party for adults and they’d invite us into the living room to spin a wheel. There were numbers on the wheel and whatever number you got was how many pieces of candy you could take from the large plastic black cauldron/bowl. The people were always dressed up, having fun, and scaring us.

Another house around the corner would decorate their entire yard with dozens of carved jack-o-lanterns. Orange glowing faces would surround us as we walked to the front door. There were several more houses that would lace faux spider webs through their trees and sometimes someone would pretend to be a scarecrow and jump up and make us all scream.

By the time I got home my feet would be aching and my bag would be heavy. My parents would have already sorted through the candy from our first run and (of course) sampled it for “safety purposes”. I recall we would freeze the remainder of the candy and my mother would stick one or two pieces in our school lunch until it was gone.

To this day, the smell of the cool air in autumn and the crunch of colored leaves under my feet makes me think of Halloween.

What are your fondest memories of Halloween?