All Hallows Eve

Happy Halloween!

Halloween the best holiday of the year. The only time of the year where the most basic human emotion is celebrated. And, if you didn't get scared this Halloween you did not have a good Halloween.

Halloween is also a holiday that really doesn't change as you grow older. Its the only time of the year an adult can feel like a kid. Where they can let go the rationality of the real world and walk around as a pirate saying, "ARR!"

The last year I went trick or treating I was 23 years old. A group of college buddies and myself dressed up as various intellectual and nerdy things and ran around the town collecting treats for our work. Myself as Caesar's ghost, decked out in a bloody toga with a knife in my back. Another friend running around as the Windows "Blue Screen of Death," the scariest thing he could think of. And a third friend walking around as Lego Man, cardboard box shape and all. We took our little group of 21-23 year old tricksters to Salem Avenue and walked around reenacting the witch scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail. Because, everybody knows Monty Python is part of college curriculum. Imagine our surprise when we Trick or Treated a house and saw a woman, dressed as a witch, come to the door. Lucky for us she had seen the movie too.

But the one question we got asked the most that night was not, "What are you supposed to be?"
Which was always a kids favorite. It was, "Aren't you kids a little old to be Trick or Treating?" We were asked this question so many times that eventually, in unison, we would answer back, "You can be too old to Trick or Treat?" They would usually just smile and laugh.

Really a person never becomes too old to Trick or Treat. They just make a transition from the Trick or Treat-er to the Trick or Treat-ee. Older people enjoy trick or treating just as much giving out candy as the kids do running around an collecting it. It's all a part of the process. It just depends what side of the ritualistic transaction you are on.