Happy Halloween!  I love this holiday for so many reasons, which is why I have orange lights in the tree outside my front door and pumpkins on my porch, even though I haven’t had children living at home to trick-or-treat in years.

What I do have is nearly 100 trick-or-treaters from the neighborhood and some beyond. I eagerly answer the door every year to see what are the popular costumes of the day.  This year I am expecting a lot of Frozen princesses, both Anna and Elsa. As you can imagine, I am hoping for at least one Cinderella. The boys will probably steer towards the Avengers or other superheroes, although there is a new Star Wars movie coming out so there may be a few Jedi in the mix.  As the evening wears on and the crowd grows older, I expect the classic zombie cheerleaders and football players and the ever-popular Scream mask.

I create candy bags for all my trick-or-treaters so that I don’t have frenzied arguing over my candy bowl.  Each bag has four treats in it, and they are all made with love for the simple joys of childhood.  Yes, I know all that candy will rot their teeth, but I’m counting on their parents to control its distribution.  I always allowed mine free-rein on Halloween night, then portioned it out all the rest of the days until we got the new influx at Christmas.

Some people feel that this is a bogus holiday, but I feel just the opposite.  It is a wonderful time-honored ritual, a celebration dating to hundreds of years ago.  If it has morphed from religious observation to a costumed free-for-all, so be it.  Everybody should have the right to assume an alternate identity at least once a year, and some days should be filled with candy.  That’s the way I see it.