Trick or Treat!

It's October again, time to drag the raggedy remnants of past years out of the closet, dust them off, and re-examine them. No, I'm not talking about costumes, but about guilt & convictions. Boy, are there alot of them.
I like the idea of Halloween as a night to get together with family, all lights lit to keep out the cold and darkness. Holding the ones you love tight for one evening because the world outside is a scary, messed up place and the only way we can be safe is to hang together, maybe eat some garlicky olives and a donut on a string. I actually had a good time last year, as The Aunt took the trouble to put together games like bobbing for apples, eating whipped cream pies using nothing but your face, etc.
Plus, I made Mr. Legs take the kids trick-or-treating, which I despise.

But every time I have to wrestle the kids past a talking mummy in Walmart, or a screaming corpse at Home Depot, (of all places!), I recall exactly why I was blessed as a child not to have to participate. I wouldn't take my kids to go see SAW IX.III & 1/2 at the theater, why would I want them exposed to that type of gore in the toy department? You can't get away from it.
While being inundated with witch costumes & images does kind of open up an avenue to talk about the dangers of the occult, it's kind of hard to educate when there's a rotting skull dripping eyeballs making snide remarks from the shelf behind you.
And speaking of costumes, what's the deal with paying thirty dollars for a crappy nylon 'gown' with Sleeping Beauty pasted on the front? Have we gone insane? Going to Goodwill to pick out costume parts is a blast, why would you pay for the priviledge of giving that up? I still remember my two Halloween costumes, a home made spider (with 3-d legs, extremely hardcore for a six year old!) and a fairy princess. Picking out that princess dress at the thrift store was so much fun, and then I had the anticipation of ACTUALLY wearing a grown-up dress...It was awesome.

So what do we do? I don't know. I want these memories for my kids, but I don't want to see them still trick or treating into their twenties (it happens!), or becoming insensible of the excess grossness that so many people indulge in. Desensitizing yourself to images of death isn't gaining maturity, it's a deliberate subversion of your basic survival instincts. I'm thinking maybe we won't go around the neighborhood this year. I mean, it's not like there's no candy at Grandma's house. Then, as they get older, we can kind of outgrow the costumes but still look forward to the family celebration (which I totally dig). I've tried my hand at dressing up the past couple of years, but I suck at it and it makes me feel retarded. So I quit. I'll leave that to the 'children-at-heart'.