I saw a temporary Halloween store just after Labor Day.  My first of the season.  I’m sure there were some I’d missed in August.  This is big business.  The Halloween I recall as a child had three components.  We watched Charlie Brown, went trick-or-treating in cheap costumes and then bobbed for apples at a neighbor’s barn.  Mom bought us cheap masks at the local department store.

I don’t believe she ever spent more than 75 cents on masks.  We wore them to school and then Halloween Night.  The masks didn’t really last into November.

We didn’t care much about our costumes 50 years ago.  It was about the candy.

 She would cut paper shopping sacks and draw designs on them to match the mask.  Our heads and arms would be placed through holes in the bags.

There were always some kids with really expensive costumes but mostly everyone in town dressed as we did (and during winter we all had bread bags over our feet to make boot removal easy).

Some of today’s costumes are fads.  It’s about time to retire T-Rex.  It was funny the first year and makes for some great YouTube videos where family pets are frightened.  But it can’t top the homemade costumes.  The kind some mom made through sweat and weeks of toil.  It’s a measure of the love of a parent.

We didn’t care much about our costumes 50 years ago.  It was about the candy.

I suspect it’s much the same for today’s kids.  I lost interest in trick-or-treating in grade school.  Enjoyed my daughter’s love of the day and now mostly enjoy seeing the artwork of some very talented parents.  May God bless you!  I wouldn’t have the patience.

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