As far as special days goes, it’s hard to beat Halloween.
Even though it’s not a holiday, people still treat it as one. They prepare their costumes well in advance, they tromp around into early evening, then stay up later than usual enjoying their spoils, often to the point of physical illness.
That the next day isn’t a holiday is a bit of an oversight. Perhaps this is because the reason for needing a holiday after Halloween isn’t that credible: I was out late, over-indulged, and now feel a bit sick in the stomach. But it’s pretty much the very reason we don’t expect anybody to drag themselves to work on New Year’s Day: they were out late, they over-indulged, and now feel a bit sick in the stomach.
Despite it not being an official holiday, and it being many years since I’ve been on the receiving end of the treat dispersion, I still find Halloween a satisfying and superior day to the other 364.
First off, Halloween is by far the fairest, most community-based day in the year, and even though there is no day off attached to it, people still give up gobs of time to goblin up their yards in order that candy gobblers will be utterly gob-smacked during their night’s journeys (as if free candy weren’t enough).
With many kids now eschewing the outside world for their online, indoor worlds, getting a sense of who is even living in your community is a tricky thing to do.
Not so on Halloween.
On that day, kids go outside. There’s no way around it. They brave the frigid night to take to their neighbourhood’s streets, their presence suddenly transforming them from the moribund, leaf-strewn ghost towns they’ve become by late fall into something far livelier.
On Halloween, our neighborhoods feel like communities again. And adults don’t even have to go outside to witness this magical act as the kids come right to our doors. It is a relief to have somebody knocking on our doors who aren’t asking us to read a religious pamphlet, or asking to see our hydro bill, or asking us about our inferior internet connection.
No, on Halloween when you open that door you get cute-as-button kids, costumed and blinking, out there getting the job done.
Halloween also allows one to enjoy their treasures without having to worry whether every other person has a similar treasure to enjoy.
Not so on Christmas. How can anybody wholly enjoy a good Christmas haul when they know darn well that many on that same day, perhaps on the same street, get little to nothing, turning what should be a joyous day into something closer to its opposite?
On Halloween, if somebody didn’t get a good haul of candies, it was because that somebody didn’t do their due diligence. Halloween doesn’t depend on your wealth. I don’t give out more candy to somebody whose costume was more expensive than the rest. I give out the same amount of candy to everybody.
So on Halloween, the great lesson is this: you get what you deserve. Perhaps this is even a child’s first introduction to the idea that the work you put in exactly equals the rewards you get. You want to only do a few houses because you’re cold and tired? You’ll have to be happy with just a few treats. You want to work a wide swath of streets in a variety of neighbourhoods for several grueling hours? You will be fairly rewarded with a bursting bag. In this way, it is more than just a day: it is a just day.
Peanuts comic strip characters aside, there is no such thing as a disappointing Halloween. There are no Charlie Browns going door-to-door and ending up only with a bagful of rocks. They may get some rock-hard candy, but no rocks. And there are no children waiting in vain for the Great Pumpkin to show up then trudging home come the dawn abjectly disappointed, and besides, there are lots of great pumpkins carved by creative hands on display.
Even though there is a built-in deviance to Halloween (made manifest through soaped windows and the odd egg), it doesn’t hamper our appeal for it, and it remains a treat. Nice trick, that.
D'Arcy Closs
Sudbury