Why DO people dress up for Halloween? We’ve heard the history of All Hallow’s Eve, and like many holidays, we don’t pay much attention to the history and meaning behind the dates. We do, however, honor traditions. Halloween is filled with strong traditions and many, particularly children and the young at heart, anticipate it with excitement. 

Halloween is spooky. Spooky is thrilling and fun. Halloween means more treats, in the form of candy, than tricks. But the tricks can be wonderfully fun too. Certainly part of the trick of Halloween is dressing up in costumes and being unrecognizable. Have you ever had to guess who a gorilla or scarecrow really is at a party? And guessed wrong the first couple of attempts? Costumes are part and parcel to the fun spookiness. Add a haunted house or party with eerie sounds, lights plunging into darkness and bumping into weird fuzzy things, and the tradition of Halloween is fully recognized.

I love the wonderful variety of costumes these days. People can dress up in countless ways. They can select styles that are funny, scary, sweet, daring and representative of famous people, historical times. Consumers can purchase ready-made outfits or flex their imagination and skills to create their own. One of the best parts about costume selection is that people get to express themselves in really fun ways.

How will you be expressing yourself this year?

Laura lives in Frankfort, Kentucky, with her husband and youngest daughter. She is a writer and personal injury paralegal. She was born on Halloween and therefore considers herself an inherent expert on the holiday.

Taking the little ones out trick-or-treating? Mom and dad, you dress up too! Remember the excitement of wondering what sorts of goblins, pirates, superheros or princesses you'd run into when you were candy-caching. Seeing everyone dressed up, even the awaiting parents of the smallest tykes, supercharges the night! You could coordinate your outfits, or shoot for individualistic gusto and each pick something completely different.

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Four Unique Treats to Give Out on Halloween
By Laura McDonald

If you’d like some variety, something a little different, for your Halloween treating this year, consider these ideas:

1. McDonald's coupons. What child doesn't like McDonald's...enough said.

2. One older couple in our neighborhood gave out an unusual treat. They decorated their livingroom spookily and took a polaroid snapshot of each child posed in front of the decorations. The picture was the treat. Would you be surprised to learn the kids lined up down the sidewalk? It became so popular we neighbor parents contributed monetarily to their film packs. Note: this couple took great care to ensure children's safety and also to protect their own reputations. Their livingroom was located immediately off a large foyer. They kept their front door wide open. Their triple front window curtains were left open with bright lighting so nothing could be construed as improper. Finally, since a polaroid camera was used, no pictures were retained.

3. Treats from Oriental Trading Company. Instead of sugar decay, how about inexpensive toys instead? Yo-yo's, little dolls, funny eraser heads, the catalog and online store has lots of variety to select.

4. Perhaps in conjunction with an Oriental Trading Company purchase, set up a "duckie pond" similar to a county fair booth. Decide on groups of inexpensive prizes and number them - group 1, group 2, and so on. Get several little plastic duckies. With a permanent marker, write numbers on the bottom of the duckies to correspond with your prize groups. Have several numbers of the most inexpensive group, and only 1 or 2 special prizes of more value. Fill some type of large container with water and set the duckies afloat. If you're handy with dry ice, this would be a perfect touch for a Halloween duckie pond.

It can be just as fun to stay home and treat the little ones arriving at your door. By the way, will you greet them with treats…in a costume yourself?

A BOOtiful Halloween: "I Got a Rock"
By Laura McDonald

With cooler weather and the turning of leaves comes an exciting holiday – Halloween. A frighteningly pagan event, actually, but most people equate it to very happy childhood memories. What could be better than playing dress up, running helter skelter through the neighborhood and getting candy? Okay, maybe Christmas, but we’re focusing on one of life’s simpler pleasures.

We pretended to be someone different every year, as easy as donning a new cap. If that isn’t a great prelude for theater interest, I don’t know what is!

These days we must x-ray our kids’ candy booty, and take them to malls or parties instead of a turn around the neighborhood. Trick-or-treating has lost some of its thrilling fear factor and allure but it can certainly still be a fun family event. When my daughters were toddling, our routine was getting them dressed up and off we’d go to the mall. We’d then visit relatives where the girls got the good stuff – candy apples, popcorn balls, and BIG chocolate bars. Definite belly aches in the making unless intake was carefully regulated.

I had to explain to them why we didn’t go trick-or-treating like Charlie Brown’s gang does, although they admitted getting rocks probably wouldn’t be very fun. I begged to differ – in honor of It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, my little brother always got a rock in his bag. He felt shortchanged if one failed to emerge so he could say “I got a rock.”

Halloween parties for kids are wonderful fun. I would really deck out the house, even more than Christmas time. One year I found a wooden bird cage at a yard sale. I bought the cage, and affixed a red bird ornament to the perch, hanging upside down. I then added a huge black fuzzy spider almost as big as the cage, the shameful murderer, and laced my creation with store-bought spider webbing. I hung the cage in the foyer. It was the first thing my little Girl Scout troop saw as they entered my house for our Halloween party.

And what a party it was! The girls took turns leading the next one through the pirate den I had created. The “victim” put on a blindfold and was lead through a maze consisting of thin streamers hanging – pretty creepy! Then through feel they were asked to identify some pirate handiwork, including eyes (grapes) and brains (cooked and cooled pasta). The finale, with hands held to steady them on both sides, was being asked to “walk the plank,” a 2x4 straddling a basketball. The girls would be assisted slowly up the “plank,” and when the ball tipped it the girls felt weightless and a little unsteady as if balancing out on the end of the plank. They loved it.

My daughters mention often how fun Halloween always was in our family. I must admit, I don’t think they had half as much fun enjoying it as I did providing it.