Life with Liz: A whole month for Halloween

I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.

The monthlong celebration of Halloween has beaten me. I’m going to preface this with admitting that I am a first-rate party-pooper, and you’re free to judge me for it, but I don’t think I’m alone in saying this insanity has to stop.

So far, I’ve tallied two “safe” trick-or-treat nights, several trunk-or-treats, two parades, and three different trick-or-treat nights that my kids could have “enjoyed.” That’s not including any Halloween parties in school, or for any of the other activities or teams they belong to, that’s just the evening and weekend slate of activities.

Now, let me be clear, my kids did NOT participate in all this nonsense. The kids marched in the parades. E ganged up with her Brownie troop in one and her dance group in the other and G went to both with his Cub Scout troop. We also live along one of the parade routes, and we provide refreshments and toilets for our friends. This has become our big “shindig” of the year, and admittedly, we go a little “big.” So between the parades, and one trick-or-treat night, I think my kids get more than enough Halloween.

They would beg to differ. Trouble started brewing last week, when I made the executive decision to skip a “safe” trick-or-treat night. Since the event had been hyped in school, and “everyone else” was going to it, my kids just assumed they’d be going, too. Surprise! We had swim practice. Now, don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of work goes into these types of events, and I know that they do have their purpose. In a rural area where treating from house to house might take all night, or be impractical, or in a town where you’re afraid to go out after dark, sure these events might be necessary. I get that community organizations can capitalize and get their name out to the community through events like this, but as I headed into practice and saw kids emerging from the event with bulging bags of candy, I had to wonder how safe this event was for their blood glucose level.

When did we start trick or treating on a different day than Halloween? Staggered trick-or-treat nights mean that with a little coordination, my kids could have gone out four or five times between all the neighborhoods. We limited it to one. Our family joins up with another family, and we go to the neighborhood where their grandparents live, which happens to be the neighborhood I trick or treated in as a kid. We’ve been doing this together since our oldest kids were two or three and it has become a nice tradition.

As they grew, we started visiting a few of the neighbors, and eventually, this just became where we trick or treat. I love the memories that come back as I see my kids knocking on the same doors that I did as a kid. It’s always a treat to see some of the same older faces, as well as bittersweet to see new faces in old homes, carrying on the same traditions. My kids also get more than enough sweet stuff on the two or three blocks that we can cover in an hour or two.

With just the two or three nights that we have committed to Halloween activities, homework, instrument practice and other extracurricular commitments have suffered. I can’t imagine if we had tried to squeeze more into our already packed schedule.

This got me thinking. I know what it’s like to drag my exhausted, candy hungover kids out of bed the next morning. I know what it’s like dealing with kids who can’t concentrate on their homework and piano practice because they just can’t wait to get out the door to go raid the neighborhood’s candy stores. I can’t imagine dealing with an entire classroom full of them. I can think of at least one night, if not two or three, over each of the past three weeks that have been disrupted by Halloween activities. And, this is just the start of the holiday season that is going to last until January. I don’t know how teachers manage, I really don’t.

I guess these days, when every costume is either a Pinterest-worthy project, or a small investment at the costume store, we want to get our money’s worth and wear them everywhere. But, when is it too much? I see how much those bags of candy cost at Walmart, and I know between the three of my kids, we probably have three or four bags worth collected, and that’s with minimum participation. They won’t eat most of it. I will eat too much of it. By Christmas, it will be going into the trash. We’ve looked into “recycling” activities, but seriously, there aren’t a lot of options for 800 stale, smooshed Tootsie rolls.

I want my kids to have good memories of roaming the streets with their friends, knowing which houses are “the good houses,” and getting impatient with me as I kibbutz with longtime friends.

I want them to appreciate the one night a year that I let them indulge in a little too much candy.

I don’t want them to remember a mobbed, mad dash for all the candy they can grab.

I don’t want them to be jaded after attending 15 different Halloween events, and expecting even bigger and more elaborate tableaus next year.

This insanity is becoming what is really scary about Halloween.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.