There has been a recent trend in having a ‘safe’ Halloween by taking your kids trick or treating at the
local mall or shopping center. You dress your kids up and walk store to store as they hand out candy. Or even driving your kids over to more affluent neighborhoods. Safe, yes, but where is the community in that? I grew up in Iowa. Yeah, make your jokes, but we knew our neighbors….by name. We knew where the kids lived….and where elderly Miss Higgens lived and how she loved it when you took in her trash cans or shoveled the snow off her sidewalk. Halloween night she always saw my dad at the end of her walkway and knew it was us under those sheets or behind the batman mask and saved something special my brothers and sister and I. In return she was a warm house to stop in on our way home or just a friendly wave as we passed by (and another set of eyes). Because we were a community and took care of each other.
The mall never gave us that.
Trick or Treat in your neighborhood. Develop that sense of community. Get to know your neighbors. You and your children will benefit from learning who lives in what house. Is it a potential playmate or someone who you could help out occasionally? Maybe someone you can share recipes with or be that extra set of eyes as your child walks home from school. This isn’t a holiday that is all about how much candy the kids can get but more about your developing that greater treat- Becoming a better community.
