Wednesday's Question of the Day: when you were a kid

Happy Halloween friends! I'm wondering, was Halloween was big deal when you were a kid?

It was a huge holiday for my siblings and I (but not my parents) and my oldest sister Linda always helped us come up with costumes. I was 7 when she left for college and was on my own after that. One year I found a woman's old dress that was black with orange flowers. I made a wig with long braids out of an old white sheet and that was my costume that year. 

My parents didn't want to be bothered and never decorated or anything, and my mother refused to hand out candy to trick or treaters... I always felt bad about that except when someone gave me pecans instead of candy (we had 9 pecan trees in our back yard, lol).

Definitely - my mother in particular loved Halloween and would pull some major tricks on friends or neighbors, make us all sorts of original costumes and decorate like mad.

People around here don't do that. It's after 9:30 p.m. and we haven't had a single Trick or Treater.

My parents didn't really decorate much, a few window decorations and a corn stalks and pumpkins in the front yard, but my costume each year was a major project! Mom made my costume every year, and I won a lot of contests. The first contest I won I was 2 or 3 and dressed as a princess, complete with point hat with the streamers hanging off the end. One year I wanted to be Peter Pan, I think it was kindergarten, and won 3 contests, school, K of C, and the Moose's Halloween parties. I was a devil one year, death another year (dad chipped in with that and made me a wooden scyth that he covered in aluminum foil). After I got into junior high, I pretty much threw my own costumes together but they were nothing like my mom made.

I vaguely remember trick or treating with my dad (mom stayed home to hand out the candy), but it was outlawed when I was 5 or 6. This was in the mid 70's when there were razor blades in the apples, and LSD in the candy. So the town decided to stop all of it. There were still parties though. When the powers that be decided to allow neighborhood to had trick or treating if they wanted it, I was in high school and too old. Now, I'm wondering if I couldn't pass for a very tall 6th grader dress up as a 43 year old woman! lol

It wasn't a really big deal in my house. We had a cardboard cut out Jack o lantern they would put on the front door and we would go trick or treating. That was really it.

My parents always did a bit of decorating (those cardboard Beistle/Luhrs cut-outs to tape to a window), and bought candy, but we only ever had 5 kids come over--that was the record.  I think that's why I just love Halloween now.  And, as of last night, I do think I've made up for lost time with the trick or treater stats (see my post under "How many")!

I like it here so much that, when I think about selling our house, and moving elsewhere, I don't think I would, unless I have to. I really would miss the Halloween festivities in my neighborhood.  Our next-door-neighbor used to have an outdoor cook-out for the adults, and that's where they'd give out the candy.  The woman has since died, so they don't do it anymore. It was quite festive, as is the parade of kids up and down the streets for 2 hours!

Halloween was a fun family time in our household.  We did decorations together and helped each other with costumes.  It was a much different time back then and the holiday was generally for the kids.  Seems like these days that has reversed somewhat.

We never decorated when we were kids, but Mom and Dad did take us out trick-or-treating. We lived in town at that time and everybody walked through town....we always came back with a huge candy stash. Even back then, though, my parents looked through the candy before we were allowed to eat it.

My dad had a part time job at a local gas station when we were young. The owner decorated one of his trucks and drove it in the Halloween parade and bought a ton of candy. He had the three of us dress up in our costumes and we got to ride in the back of the truck and throw out the candy. We had a great time! He let us keep the leftover candy, too. We did that for a few years.

When our son was little, we would take him just around the neighborhood and to visit his grandparents. That was pretty much it as you had to be so careful.