Let’s assume you don’t remember before you are 5 years old, and you quit after you’re 12. That’s like 8 times you can remember going trick-or-treating your whole life.
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My cousin is still carrying her Halloween grudge against her sisters. This is like her only Halloween story, and it goes like this:
"I was like maybe 8 years old? It was some age when both candy and presents were really important to me. And I got chicken pox just before Halloween. [nb: This was before there was a vaccine.] I begged my parents, but they wouldn’t let me go out trick-or-treating; their concession was that they’d send my sisters out with a spare pillowcase.
"Only on their way home, my sisters stopped a couple houses up the street and dumped all three pillowcases into piles on the sidewalk, and then proceeded to ‘exchange’ all my chocolate for their Bit 'o Honey’s and Mary Jane’s.
"They got home and I eagerly went for my candy, only to be confronted by this travesty of all the bad candy. I complained to my parents, who told me to be quiet and just be happy that I got any candy at all.
"A couple months later, both my sisters got chicken pox as well. Except by then it was Christmas, so my grandparents said it was horrible to be sick over Christmas and bought them both extra presents.
“Anyway, that’s my childhood grudge that I’m never letting go of: that when I was sick, all my good candy was stolen, and when they were sick, they got extra presents.” And then she always ends it: “So - what’s your childhood grudge that you’re not letting go of?”
In 5th grade (1995 or so?) there was a total solar eclipse going over our school RIGHT DURING RECESS, and they made EVERYONE stay inside at our desks and miss the whole thing so we wouldn’t burn our eyes out looking at it. So on top of missing the eclipse, we also missed recess.
I was furious. I did not get to see a total solar eclipse for another 20+ years.
Oh, wow. Yeah, I’m with you - I’d still be pissed!
Same thing here. I get it, too many idiot kids. But you should have had recess later, don’t recall if we did.
My school grudge was that I bought a 30GB ipod with the money I got from the death of my grandpa, which was mad money for something I cherished. Anyway, I took it to school all the time and during one P.E. lesson I came back to my belongings and my ipod was gone, so the most likely suspect was someone from my class, as the gym/changing rooms was seperate from the main concourse of the school and it was mid-lesson. I couldnt tell my parents, and i couldnt buy another, so I spent months and months not eating in school to save up dinner money for a replacement to hide it from my family, only to learn, after a long time, that my debit card wasnt accepted on apple’s website. (I think my dad bought it with my money originally).
So I just had to go with lies and such for ages, then about a year and a half later, in another P.E. lesson, it just appeared in my shoe. So someone knew what was mine enough to return it. And all anyone in class did was laugh at the idea that it was in my shoe the whole time… I never found out who did it but a trusted friend that had no relation to the lessons suggested that maybe someone nicked it until their parents saw them with it and they lied and said I leant it to them, which sounds the most likely explanation to me.
Still annoys me. I dont believe in an afterlife, but if there is such a place, I’ll be skipping the tutorial to run to the place that let’s you review the world from any point in history so I can see that changing room on the day my ipod went missing.
I’d hold that grudge.
In my day, little kids with chickpox were encouraged to get other kids sick and get it over with. I somehow missed it until I was 16 and I’m not sure I’ve ever been that sickened and horrified in my 55-years. Still got the scars! At least I got the shingles vax, but I think I’m past due for the second shot.
I’d hold that grudge.
God damn I am holding that grudge.
I would trick or treat on Beggars Night in my grandparents’ town, and on Halloween in my home town, and at Boo at the Zoo to trick or treat at each animal exhibit, and at trunk’or’treat through church. Not all those within a single year, but usually more than one per year. So probably more like 16-20 for me.
And then as I aged out, I was still taking my youngest singlings out so they could trick or treat and I’d just walk with them. So another +2 or 3 there.
I went out till I was done highschool.
The trick was you had to have a better costume each year.
I give candy to anyone of any age in a costume. Halloween is for everyone.
I grew up where there were three houses.
I didn’t go trick or treating much
I grew up on a small circular street with 7 houses on it, 4 of which had kids… Our parents would just get us together in a group and we’d make the rounds of all 7 houses (including our own) and that was that. I never experienced anything larger until I was in middle school and a friend invited me to go with them. Blew my mind that you could just… walk up to random houses and they’d give you candy. I thought everyone was just doing the same small-scale thing I was getting.
We couldn’t see any houses, but we trick-or-treated at my grandparents house in a nearby city.
Essentially what I did, just when visiting friends around Halloween.
Only been a couple of times but I’m always usually working in London around Halloween and it’s good seeing all the costumes
Your parents were either really rich or really poor.
Nah, just Northumberland
I always went with friends who lived in town as where I grew up all the houses were a mile or so apart on gravel roads.
As a kid. Taking with your kids as a parent is fun too.
This is something the Happiness Lab podcast talks about and it’s a really strong point to make. If you start thinking about “I’ve only got about 7 or 8 Xmases with the kids where they believe in Santa and Xmas is magical to them” or “I only see my parents once every few months, so may only get 10 or 15 lunches with them before the end of their life”… And you’ll really start getting a better appreciation of life.
It’s definitely a sediment sample of a specific period of time.
Odds are, Christmas and other holiday are remembered more dearly around those times as well.
quit after 12???
Okay fair, but I think the best memories are made with your kids.
Don’t have kids? You probably have friends who do and would love a night off.
12 might be an early cut off for the upcoming generations, a few 18 year olds in my college said they were trick or treating last year, which is wild to me. Kids would have wrecked anyone who wasn’t taking younger siblings trick or treating at that age when I was a kid. But just letting people do whatever as long as nobody is getting hurt is probably a better way to be.
Here in Italy we experience this stuff exactly ZERO times 🤓
I’ve also done it exactly zero times. In southern England it wasn’t a tradition when I grew up (90s), though more people seem to do it now. I think in Scotland it may be more of a tradition I believe but I’m not from there.
You’re missing … well, nothing that cannot be had many other ways. A sense of your neighborhood being awesome instead of just, “a neighborhood” is cool. Though the weird need to go to every door and and expect candy or a trick is … weird as hell, IMO.
So many other ways that can be more often than annual to create that cool sense of actual community.
The candy is awesome as hell as a kid, but as an adult it’s an obnoxious obligation that only serves to line the pockets of shithole “candy” peddlers like Hershey’s and Mars, here. Would love to see that replaced with anything more cultural than, “SuGaR tAsTe GOoD”.
You sure are taking this, uh, serious. It’s fun for everyone involved and if you don’t want your doorbell rung, you leave the porch light off. Trick or treating is pretty much dead in a traditional sense, so there’s that too.
Yes, I’m trying to remember what aspects were good such that they might be carried forward or spread. Heaven forbid I attempt to do more than mindlessly engage in nostalgia!
Fine, it wasn’t fun for you. We had a square mile of neighborhood to roam and most houses participated. That’s not mindless nostalgia, that’s how it was in my time and place. We haven’t had a single kid in the past 3 years, so in this time and place the tradition is dead. Well, dead as I knew it.
Oh it was fun. The point is nostalgia is only serious motivation for brainless consumers. Why do you want people to be brainless consumers?
Identify what was actually great about the times, and propagate that instead. Not some copy-paste fairy tale.
I remember maybe 2 times max. And one Halloween party in my 20’s.
Fuck
Okay I remember being a ninja. My parents had tickets to an NBA game that night.
I remember having a demon mask one year?
I remember 2 other years where idk if I even had a costume, me and friends were just out cruising on bmx bikes picking up (FAIR AMOUNTS OF) candy…
Maybe one more when I was out til like 11 pm without realizing it but that might be overlapped…
Yeah that tracks. I got 4 or 5, and my episodic memory is a bit of a steel trap.
