Save the Treats

Above please see the aforementioned traditional garb of our ancestral land.

Or not.

Halloween happened, and I did indeed go with A as she trick-or-treated (not to mention little Jr. above). I did indeed appear dressed in said traditional garb. But then A, who had been told that she would be going dressed as a "_____ [redacted national origin] girl," announced that she was going to be a "_____ [redacted national origin] girl...wearing a blue princess dress and fairy wings and a crown."

And so she was. It was incredibly cute, but meanwhile there I was in my get-up, which was rendered inexplicable by A's last-minute wardrobe change.

I would ponder the emotional scars that has surely left, but I have bigger things to worry about. A went trick-or-treating...but it seems like nobody else did. I haven't gotten many trick-or-treaters for years, and it was the same this year – just a couple of groups of older teenagers who don't live in the area who came because we've got better treats than wherever they live.

But out where my brother lives, there used to be lots of trick-or-treaters. This year, there were hardly any. I figured it would be especially big this year since it wasn't a school night.

Is trick-or-treating endangered? I used to be worried that Halloween itself would disappear, victim of played-up fears of stranger danger and religious extremism, but that doesn't seem to be the case in a world where Halloween-only shops proliferate each October. If anything, Halloween seems to be a bigger money-maker than ever.

The trick-or-treating, though, is waning. I hope that kids 20 years from now don't look look back on it as something quaint and archaic, like playing kick the can or, I dunno, convincing your friends to paint a fence for you.