The saying “The days are long but the years are short” is never truer than when I’m looking back at Halloweens past. Before I was a mom, I used to sit on the front porch handing out candy to the neighborhood kids, often alone because my Navy husband was away on deployment.
I’d “ooh” and “ahh” over the cute costumes and encourage the tired-looking parents to hang in there — as if I had any idea what it took to wrangle a toddler into an ill-fitting and itchy costume (one they wanted to wear!) or negotiate with a cranky preschooler who was up two hours past their bedtime as they bounced around the house in a sugar rush.
Then I found out.
Courtesy of Kristina Wright
Halloween with little kids is fun — and exhausting
Once we had two kids, Halloween became this big, exciting holiday that somehow felt like it was more for me than them — and yet it was still completely exhausting. My oldest son was only 10 months old on his first Halloween and I think he wore his Tigger costume for maybe an hour before he’d had enough of the holiday.
The following year, he was thrilled to wear his lion costume and go trick-or-treating with his 8-week-old baby brother dressed as a peapod. It was a very early evening for all of us, but they were adorable. Of course, my husband and I claimed most of the candy (the “candy tax,” we called it) because they were too young to enjoy it.
By the time they started school, trick-or-treating had reached mythic proportions. They dreamed about bags of candy so big they wouldn’t be able to carry them home. Of course, though they were full of energy and wanted to walk as far as they could, their little legs couldn’t quite match expectations. My husband would end up carrying one or both of them while I collected various costume pieces that had fallen off or gotten too hot, along with their heavy bags of candy.
Courtesy of Kristina Wright
The middle-grade years were the sweet spot
The sweet spot of the trick-or-treating years for me was when my kids were old enough to choose their own costumes and actually make it through two hours of trick-or-treating without melting down or asking to be carried home. Sure, the costumes weren’t as cute as when they were younger (like the year they went as characters from a video game they were too young to play), but they had a blast picking them out and happily trick-or-treated for as long as we would let them. (Which usually meant I was the one begging to be carried.)
My favorite years were when their costumes and the weather aligned — neither too heavy when it was unseasonably warm nor too lightweight when it was chilly or rainy. Gone were the days of puppies and kitties, lions and tigers; now they wanted to be Star Wars and Minecraft characters. And they had caught on to our candy-stealing ways, loudly declaring that the candy tax was deeply unfair.
Now, they’re teenagers, and they want nothing to do with the tradition
The pandemic stole one Halloween from us, and by 2021, my oldest son was almost 12 and had lost interest in trick-or-treating, while my youngest was 10 and thrilled to go as the character everyone said he looked like — Harry Potter. Since then, he’s continued to be excited about Halloween even as his interest in formal costumes faded, cobbling together whatever he could find around the house.
One year he was a contestant from The Great British Bake Off (an apron, a loaf of bread, some flour in his hair). Another year, he went as a Starbucks barista (a beanie, a Starbucks apron and cup, a headset). But now he’s decided that he, too, is finished with trick-or-treating.
Courtesy of Kristina Wright
For the first time in 15 years, I’ll be handing out candy instead of trailing after my own costumed kids as they roam the neighborhood collecting treats. It’ll be a bittersweet night — and yes, I plan to eat my feelings in fun-size candy bars. Because trick-or-treating is one of those childhood traditions that end far too soon. Like getting up at dawn to open Christmas presents or hiding a hundred Easter eggs in the yard, it can feel like more work than fun sometimes.
When it’s gone — when the last costume has been worn, when the teens sleep in later than I do on Christmas morning, when the Easter eggs are tucked in a box in the back of the closet — all we’re left with are the memories and the photos. And I’m not ready to be finished, even if they are.
But who knows — maybe in exchange for a couple of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, I can lure my teens out to the porch to hand out candy with me and reminisce about their favorite Halloweens. After all, paying the candy tax has always been part of the deal — and this year, I’m more than happy to pay it for a little extra time with them.
