THE HALLOWEENERS

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Happy Halloween!  The big day is officially here, and it might seem like the entire early fall season has been building up to this moment.  From the overflowing Walmart aisles to the antsy 8-year-olds to the nostalgic empty-nesters like me, it's been mounting buzz and anticipation since the hot, sweaty days of late summer.

HALLOWEEN — RETAIL EDITION: 

ACT ONE:  It’s August, and one minute it’s all squeaky-clean back-to-school notebooks and markers and scissors in store aisles, and then — out of nowhere — the fake rats and black crows appear.  Back-to-School and Halloween, often sitting side-by-side, have an uneasy seasonal co-existence.  The school supplies in Aisles 23-26 represent everything parents hope for their children (Learning ✏️ Growth ✏️ Friendship  ✏️ Opportunity); the Halloween merchandise in Aisles 27-32 offers everything the children hope for themselves (Sour Patch Kids Monster Heads!  Fake fangs dripping fake blood!  Bouncy balls that look like eyeballs!)  It is very hard for a glue stick to compete on this level. 

ACT TWO:  By mid-September, Halloween has triumphantly secured the store’s seasonal section for itself.  It’s all pumpkin orange and basic black, with pops of green and purple (which I think only joined the Halloween color family in recent decades?)  Retail Act Two is Halloween in its fullest consumer expression, a thrillingly spooky and delicious wonderland.  Everything typically held in restraint — say, sugar or creepy gruesomeness — is suddenly available in spectacular excess, as in entire walls brimming with sugar-packed treats and rows and rows of concerning/confusing costume and decor options.  (Sidenote: I was curious, so I just checked — the sugar in a standard serving size for Sour Patch Kids, which are among the 2025 Hanaway offerings, represents 44% of the recommended daily value.  Ha, sorry!  Best wishes, parents!)  

ACT THREE:  In the days just before Halloween, the displays are starting to look picked over and a few early clearance signs crop up.  It all seems just a little bit dreary, a little bit last week, as you spy a lone bouncy-ball eyeball in an otherwise empty shelf bin.  You begin pondering the excesses of consumerism … but … Wait. Just. One. Minute.  Is that holiday music you faintly hear?  As your eyes shift away from the eyeball ball, you are drawn by some familiar sounds and old memories to a section of entirely new, fresh dazzle a few aisles over.  There, a lush thicket of fake trees with over 35 different lighting functions stands tall and proud.  The winter holiday season has officially arrived.

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HALLOWEEN —  FAMILY EDITION: 

ACT ONE:  Kids start trial-ballooning costume ideas around late summer; wise parents hold off on the purchases or DIY construction because August’s obsession is at risk of becoming October’s reject.  But I thought you LOVED Paw Patrol?  A child’s stone-cold abandonment of a once-essential and beloved character / animal / toy might trigger a parent's nostalgia-fueled paralysis, but there is no time for reminiscing or breaking down.  Parents must stay alert and nimble because the giant orange wave of Act Two is building in the distance. 

ACT TWO:  This is the heart of the anticipation era.  Halloween decorations move from storage to the kitchen, the hallway, the front porch, and the front yard, amping up the energy everywhere.  Entire communities of zombies, ghosts, large spiders, and giant posable skeletons form along streets. (Hey Pixar!  It seems like this could be a Toy Story-story extension, but I’d only watch it if the creatures were secret softies like Sully + Mike.)

Families are now corn-mazing and picking out pumpkins, and parents are hiding giant bags of candy saved for the neighborhood Trick or Treaters … it’s not that they don’t trust their own kids … but, no, they don’t trust their own kids.  The kids themselves are committing to their final costume concepts, spending the next few weeks (or the evening of 10/30) refining with or without the help of a parent.  They are also forming and re-forming their mental hierarchy of candy brands to seek out, confident in what they will later trade and keep.  Halloween run-up events (Trunk or Treat, Boo at the Zoo) fill the calendar.  The expectancy builds and the countdown is on.

ACT THREE:  It’s finally October 31st — showtime!  Peak energy is bubbling up or melting down, depending; there is only so much electric anticipation a small body can absorb.  The Halloween school day has had its own excitement (bless the teachers), but it’s now time for the main event.  The pumpkins are carved and glowing, dinner is quick, costumes are on, the debate about suggested/required outerwear (parkas, rainboots) ensues.  Kids tumble out their front doors clutching pillowcases and plastic pumpkin buckets, with a parent or two keeping a watchful (or not) distance. 

Some Halloweeners retain their observant caution, but others feel liberated and let loose on the neighborhood — louder, more free and more brave in their alter-ego costumes.  They race down the sidewalks toward tall front doors.  They negotiate the prized doorbell ring, and stand back, ready for the door to swing open: 

“Trick or Treat!”

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Costume small talk, etc.

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Candy bowl 

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“Thanks! Happy Halloween! Bye!”

It’s a speedy exchange because Halloween night is — among other things — a race against time.  Darting down the steps, the Halloweeners hurry towards the next house. This is the exhilarating rush they have been waiting for all year long.

After all the dinosaurs, Marios, Elsas, M&Ms, and KPop Demon Hunters have roamed from house to house and street to street, the night winds down with darkened porches and looming bedtimes.  Back inside the quiet, contained walls of home, kids quickly transition to the wild-eyed dumping of candy, the trading of candy, the eating of (some) candy.  They are hopped up on sugar and the residual thrill of nighttime friend banter and neighbor-stranger doorway encounters.  Bedtime will be late.  Tomorrow morning might be a mess.  But in the days ahead, both the candy and the magic will remain.

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HALLOWEEN — EMPTY-NEST EDITION:

There are many other Halloween editions – High School Halloween, College Halloween, Neighborhood Halloween, Disability Halloween, Grandparent Halloween, Pet-Parent Halloween, etc., but this is the version I currently know best 🎃.

ACT ONE:  There is little-to-no Act One for this demographic.  We might pick up some Post-It Notes if they are on sale during back-to-school time … or we might not.  And we do see the early Halloween displays but simply widen our eyes and say, “Oh wow — already?”  And that’s about it!

ACT TWO:  We still have that old Halloween spirit, yes we do.  We retrieve the borderline-dated decorations from storage, but they still look fine to us, so out they go.  Some of us might break new ground and buy a skeleton for the first time, naming him Hank and dressing him up like a farmer waving from the front porch so as not to spook the little ones (the only hitch being that Hank continually spooks us — specifically us, Rick + Libby — because whenever we step out to the front porch, a stranger is unexpectedly relaxing in the far-side rocking chair).  

Hank says hi • 10/31/2025

Empty-Nest Act Two is also big for the candy purchase, and because we are not busy buying / making / borrowing costumes and attending all the pre-Halloween events, we might magnify the importance of candy selection, perhaps to an unnecessary degree.  But this is our primary Halloween job as empty-nesters, and we want to do it right.  Those of us who have experience with the stoic disappointment of a food-restricted child might be particularly committed to the candy selection process, twisting ourselves in Aisle 28 as we try to accommodate the gluten-free, the peanut-free, and, of course, the sticky-free for our young orthodontic friends.  And because we do not want to run the risk of an empty candy bowl before 8 pm, we buy three extra bags, just in case.  

ACT THREE: We wake up on Halloween morning with a little buzz of excitement, a flutter of anticipation.  Today we wear orange but go about our routine as usual, shutting down work by 4:45 p.m.  We click on the orange string lights early and make sure Hank is out there ready to greet.  As we dump the various candy brands into the various bowls (digging out a handful of Reese’s for later), our minds might float back to our own kids’ Halloween years, when they roamed the muddy pumpkin field each year with their longest-time friends, when they shriek-laughed scooping out the gloppy pumpkins seeds, when they ran down the dark street dressed throughout the years like a ladybug, a puppy, a cheetah, a yellow-hatted Madeline, a cowgirl, a Cookie Monster, a witch, a superhero, a fairy, an army girl in sequined camo … all skips and giggles, then turning suddenly shy at neighbors’ doors.  We let out a sad-happy sigh, remembering it all.

Serres Farms, just down the big hill from our old Sammamish, WA neighborhood • 10/08/2006

Kitchen table • Coralville IA • 10/30/2010

Sammamish WA Halloweens — usually with rain • 10/31/2005

But shake it off, Hanaways — it's time to focus! We hear the first early shouts in the street and quickly clear our heads of the misty nostalgia.  We step out the door to see the first round of trick-or-treaters — most are our little neighbors — making their way from house to house as the sky turns purple-pink.  These are the youngest Halloweeners with the earliest bedtimes, some still babes-in-arms, some holding a grown-up’s hand, some boldly running ahead.  The most sentimental of us empty-nesters might tear up once more, this time at the sight of all this beautiful, magical, costumed, plastic-pumpkin-carrying innocence and joy marching up and down the sidewalk.  (Later in the night, the older-kid Halloweeners will bring their shy awkwardness and boisterous swagger. It's all good. Childhood is fleeting; Halloween says Keep It Going.)

Colorado Halloween • 2024

Back to the porch: we’ve been standing outside here for a while, taking in this approaching scene, but the first of the early-evening Halloweeners are now just one house away.  It’s time!  We quickly close the door to allow their doorbell moment.  We hear them tromping up the stairs, we hear their little voices, we hear their parents’ whispered prompts.  The doorbell rings, and the small shadows behind the milky glass wiggle in expectation.  Here they are at last, and we are ready for them just behind the front door.  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!

👻

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EXTRA GOOD

ALSO LINKED THROUGH THE EXTRA GOOD PAGE HERE

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2025

You might have a busy night ahead so we'll keep it to one Extra Good link for today.

GOOD LAUGHS: This link could also count as a Good Food entry, except not everyone agrees that candy corn is a good food (or whether it's an actual food at all).

What are your thoughts? (This is a first-time poll effort, so let's see how it turns out 🎃)

Team Candy Corn or Team Anything Else

• 0%I love candy corn!
• 0%I do not love — or remotely like — candy corn!

Like its Christmas cousin eggnog, candy corn generates strong opinions. Personally, I don't LOVE the taste of candy corn (except when you mix it with salty peanuts and Cheez-Its, as my sister Cheri always does), but I do love its colors and universal fall season signal ... so sure, I'm Team Candy Corn. But I became a much more committed teammate after C sent me a candy corn cartoon from The New Yorker last Halloween; I've had a cardstock copy of it taped inside one of our kitchen cabinet doors ever since.

It's a scene that makes me smile every time I open the cabinet and reach for a plate. How the cartoonist, Johnny DiNapoli, managed to imbue a piece of candy corn with an earnest, healthy self-concept despite bearing the weight of the world's contentious opinions, I will never know. But it is one of my favorites and I've been waiting to share it with you. I'm not 100% sure about the copyright rules here, so I am sending you to DiNapoli's own site — this particular cartoon is up at the top of his collection and you'll know it when you see it (then click it to enlarge for the full cartoon experience). After you do, all you naysayers might consider joining Team Candy Corn if only as a form of friendly solidarity.

— Johnny DiNapoli Cartoons —

SEE YOU AGAIN NEXT WEEK FOR ANOTHER BATCH OF GOOD

😀