Saturday, October 29, 2011

Halloween

Halloween was a lot different when I was a kid in the 1940s and 50s.

Back then it was a holiday all kids could enjoy. Since Wicca and New Age religions weren’t around yet it had no religious connotations and only little kids really believed in witches and ghosts.

Most children either wore costumes made by their mothers, or cut holes in old bedsheets and pretended to be ghosts. All sheets were white back then, and it was usually easy to find an old one that could be spared. Store bought costumes were thin plastic and so cheaply made they would usually get torn before the evening was over, so nobody wore them if they could help it.

Trick or treating was perfectly safe. Only the tiniest kids without older siblings needed adults to go with them, and we ate the homemade treats people gave us without hesitation, often before we got home. We usually had enough candy left in our bags to last for weeks.

At the end of the evening we'd snuggle into bed with full tummies and happy memories of our adventures.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Does this take me back! These are happy memories of safe times for kids. What has happened to our world?

Janet Ann Collins said...

Maybe things will be better for the next generation.

BarbaraB said...

This sounds so much like my Halloweens. I always got a false face that was molded out of fabric and held together with glue, and it got soggy around the mouth area when I breathed on it.
My favorite costume was a majorette made of crepe paper. I loved it too much to wear it trick or treating.
We went to the church parking lot for a bonfire and hot dogs.
Jan, thanks for the memories.

Janet Ann Collins said...

Thank you for the comment, Barbara. Tonight I turned off the lights after about 100 kids came here because I was running out of candy.