Never Too Old for Halloween

I remember the days before I was a mom, when I envied a number of things about my friends-with-kids. They received priority boarding on airplanes, had an excuse to go to Disney a lot, and didn’t get dirty looks when they ordered from the kids’ menu. But most importantly, they got to go trick-or-treating at Halloween.

 I love Halloween. I love it even more than my kids do. I have always embraced every opportunity to dress up, and between various Halloween parties and events, I could wear a handful of different costumes each year. 

But for me, Halloween goes way beyond dressing up. I can’t get enough of the awesome home and yard décor, and in recent years I’ve had tombstones, skeletons, giant spiders and inflatable cats embellishing my lawn. I loved my flamingo skeleton so much that he became a permanent resident of our yard.  

Last year I strung spiderwebs throughout the house along with small plastic spiders — a new addition that excited me much more than it did my kids. 

Obviously, Halloween also means pumpkins, which I buy as soon as they show up in stores. First, we draw on faces with markers, and somewhere around Oct. 30, we carve them up. And by “we,” I mean “me,” because for some reason, my kids do not like reaching in and scooping out the guts of the pumpkin, which, of course, is the best part.

But most of all, Halloween means candy — lots and lots of candy. And it is conveniently served in mini sizes, so I can justify buying a bag or three and bringing it to the office for the perfect afternoon pick-me-up.

Although I could certainly buy candy at the store before I had kids, I missed trick-or-treating. Nothing — not even whole bags of Butterfingers — beats going door to door, calling out those three exciting words, and being rewarded with free confections. I check out all the costumes, tour the neighbors’ haunted houses, and get buzzed on sugar while hanging out with my friends. What could be better than that?

As soon as my son was born, I eagerly joined the candy-hunting crowd. The poor little guy was only 3 months old when I stuffed him into a cow costume (matching mine, of course) and hit up the neighborhood trunk-or-treat. That year, he didn’t get any candy, and he slept through most of it, but for me it was momentous. 

It turns out modern trick-or-treating is even better than I remember, because there isn’t as much walking going car to car as when we go house to house, and everyone handing out candy is just as excited to be there as we are.

Truth be told, the quest for candy is the only part of Halloween that my kids love as much as I do, and really, only my youngest child, because she is a candy addict. She is like me: She will gladly walk for miles as long as she can stop at every house, ring the doorbell and get a sweet reward just for stopping by. It doesn’t even matter very much what kind of candy we get — the thrill is in the hunt.

Sadly, my trick-or-treating years are coming to an end. My son has already hit the “too cool for you” phase of puberty, so he might stay home and hand out candy this year. And in a few years, my daughter will reach the tragic age when people stop saying “Oh how cute!” and start asking “Aren’t you a little old to be trick-or-treating?”  If they only knew…

Jennifer Jhon is a parenting writer and mom who believes you are never too old to have fun.