Halloween Memories

This is going to be one of those posts that starts with, “When I was growing up…” so you’ve been warned!

Anyway, when I was growing up, Halloween was a festive day, but it was much lower on the excitement scale than say, Christmas or Easter. We didn’t have parties. We didn’t plan our costumes for weeks on end. We lived in the country, so we didn’t have a neighborhood to walk the sidewalks. But we had fun!

Our costumes were NEVER bought from a store. I mean, to suggest such a thing was unthinkable, laughable, even! Costumes were developed with what we had in our house. My dad’s old boy scout uniform was put to use one year. I’m pretty sure I was a lumberjack or a hobo most other years. I do remember my sister dressing up as a witch–and now that I’m thinking about it, I’m wondering where she got the pointy hat? Hmm… I’ll have to ask her.

Our first stop was always my grandmother’s who lived a few miles away. When we were little, she made special brown lunch bags filled with peanuts, an apple (I usually threw that out), small candies and a homemade popcorn ball. Let me tell you, that popcorn ball was delicious!

After my grandparent’s house, we headed straight to my other grandma’s house. She would open a bag of Milky Ways and just start dumping them in our bags. I loved that! Then Dad would drive us around with a stop at our old babysitter’s house. We’d get super excited to ring her doorbell. She always greeted us with a cookie sheet filled with full-size candy bars in a wide variety. We’d get to pick our favorite. Oh, the bliss!

One year we stopped at a house that had a big bowl of candy on the front porch and a sign, Take a Handful. We did.

At home we’d dump our bags out on the living room floor and separate all the goodies. I gave my Mounds and Almond Joys along with those peanut butter taffy things to my folks. I ate the rest. 🙂

Trick-or-treating is different in some ways now. People decorate their yards and houses. Store-bought costumes are the norm. But in other ways it’s the same. The weather is up for grabs. You never know if it will be freezing, rainy or unseasonably warm. Kids are still thrilled to dress up, run to a door and get candy. Fun times. I hope their memories are as good as mine. 🙂

Did you trick-or-treat when you were little? What are your memories of Halloween?

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Have a safe and fun weekend!