Trick or Treat! Maybe not . . .

I know it's probably not anywhere near the consensus . . . but I just am not a big fan of Halloween.

Incidentally (as I'm sure many of y'all know), Halloween has a mixture of both pagan and Christian history.  The word, itself, is a contraction of "All Hallows' Eve" (which means the evening before All Hallows' Day . . . All Saints Day).  The roots of Halloween are found in Pagan rituals.  An interesting combination, indeed.

So.  What is it about Halloween that I do not like?

I was recently asked this on my Facebook page, so I thought I'd use Swirlings to answer.
Ha!  I'm supposed to be the person who prefers things to be uncomplicated.  But, yes, strangely enough, it makes sense to me to use one platform to answer a question that was asked on another platform.  There ya go.

Besides, FB doesn't particularly care for wordy posts; it gets very confuzzled, freezes and then usually blips the post into some ozone corner of the web of world-wideness . . . and yep, that happened to me this morning.  There ya go.

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First, let's talk about what I do like about Halloween.

Cute kids in sweet, adorable, innocent costumes, with cheery bright and sometimes-painted faces.

Ah, be still my heart!
That's about it, as far as what I like regarding the celebrations surrounding the 31st day October.

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What I don't like entails a bit more.

First, I'm not really into ghoulish things; never have been.  Nor, am I interested in exploring the darker side of humanity.  Yeah, it's there; that's a fact; I just don't like delving into it.  Halloween seems to bring that out in adults a bit more than other days.

The other aspect of Halloween that I find a bit bothersome is actually probably the main reason as to why I'm not wild about celebrating that particular day . . .

. . . Sugar!
Yep.  Sugar.  More precisely, sugar mixed with a plethora of unecessary chemicals.

Halloween is probably the biggest sugar-oriented day of the year (with Easter running a close second).

I am continually astounded by the amount of sugar that is bought, distributed and eaten; all in honor of Halloween.

And . . . it's all junk (in my opinion; and, it's an opinion that I realize many do not share).

If the treats being given to kids were homemade treats that would be an entirely differnt matter; but the vast majority of the treats being thrown into the bags held by small humans wearing cute costumes are definitely not homemade.  And, the kicker is that in today's world, homemade treats are frowned upon because of the freaky few who like to put razor blades and poison into homemade treats.  The candy manufacturers and the stores then cash in on this and flood the market with various colorful bite-sized packages of tempting sugar in its many forms.  For example, the grocery store that Tex and I shop at has had their Halloween "area" up for about 3 weeks now.  It's also a pretty big area; after all, Halloween is big business.

Case-in-point:  Trick-or-treat bags seem to get bigger and bigger as the years go by.  I've seen kids with bags almost bigger than they are!

Which brings me to another point . . . when I was a young girl, trick-or-treating consisted of going around our immediate neighborhood (which consisted of 2 streets).  "Back then", there was a neighborly relationship between the trick-or-treaters and the treat-givers.  On some level, I knew every person whose doorbell I rung or whose door I knocked.  Maybe that's a bit Norman Rockwell-ish, but I miss that in today's society; and I miss it for the kids.

Now, it seems to be all about how much candy a child can get.  In recent years, I have heard (in various forms) of parents driving their children around for hours, visiting streets and homes that are miles from where they live . . . all in the name of kids racking up huge amounts of sugary loot.  I know that the number of kids perusing my street on Halloween night far exceeds the the total number of kids who actually live my entire neighborhood.  I cringe when I think of how much sugar these precious children will be consuming because of Halloween. 

And, it doesn't stop there. 
Sugar is addicting. 
Pretty, colorful packaging can be very enticing. 

The combination of the two is often a very difficult temptation to resist; both for young and not-so-young, alike.  I have a very strong concern that we are raising generations (yes, plural) of children that will quickly become addicted to sugar . . . which, in turn, will lead to higher rates of various diseases and illnesses; obesity, diabetes and heart disease being the top three.  Incidentally, as a bonus FYI, cancers feed off of sugar.

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Bobbing for apples; silly, fun games; cute, sweet costumes; homemade treats . . . this is my idea of Halloween.  Alas, it's also not the most popular ideas regarding this day; this I certainly know.

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Please don't misunderstand . . . if ghoul and/or candy is your thang; then so be it.
I'm no one's lifestyle police nor nutrition police.

But for me, I just think there's much better things out there for us.

Thanks for reading; y'all be most abundantly blessed,
Sharmie