I heard some people complaining the other day that Halloween has become too commercialized. I found that funny because what exactly does that mean? Have we shifted our attention away from our, "supposed" traditional messages of witchcraft and devil worship to that of corporate profit and greed? If true, then surly some confusion is going to ensue. Everybody knows at least one kid from when they were growing up whose parents didn't allow them to participate in the Halloween festivities because they thought the theme of the night was inappropriate. If that theme has changed - what are they supposed to think now? Halloween was at first bad but corporate greed is bad now as well so which one trumps the other? But how can corporations be so bad when they're supplying jobs? So they're actually good after all - right? Then again, corporate greed is bad but the answer to that is government regulation which used to be bad, but now is somewhat good! How the hell are we supposed to get through this maze?!
You know, I was never really that advanced in my thinking about Halloween. Funny me, all I ever thought about was getting bags of candy. To those worried parents out there who wondered what went on during trick or treat- this may come as a shock - I never came across any home where I was asked to drink goat's blood, cast spells, or pledge undying devotion to Lucifer. There, it's out in the open. That might have been interestingly scary, but it never happened - not even close. We just walked around in our cheap plastic costumes collecting candy, packets of crackers, and maybe a few pieces of fruit that we would eventually throw back into the person's yard later in the evening. That was it - no devil, no spells, pretty boring.
I don't even remember having any sort of discussions with my friends about what the evening meant to them. And the closest thing to evil we ever saw was the Butter Knife Twins - who received their namesake for carrying around butter knives in order to scare other kids. And they weren't even that bad because all they ever did was grab some pieces of candy from our bags and walk off.
Anyway, I do have one problem with the commercialization and it involves the decorations. First Christmas - now Halloween! I'm tired of it. Everywhere my idiot owner and I go on our nightly walks - we see homes decorated with orange and purple lights and large inflatable characters. When did all this happen? Wasn't it bad enough waiting until April for our neighbors to take down their Christmas lights that we felt the need to up the ante? You know people are lazy by nature and will probably put one set of lights on top of the next. Then we'll have red, green, white, orange and purple lights strung in some sort of hybrid seven month celebration. Now that's scary!
I say we go back to just taping a few cardboard cutouts in the front window and maybe a pumpkin or two on the front porch. It's simple to decorate, easy to clean up, and comes with less societal confusion. Besides, at least then parents can go back to their traditional worries and excuses since it's hard telling little Bobby he can't trick or treat due to the evil corporations and their greed. Even little kids know that argument doesn't jive. Have a great day!
