Ah, yes, Halloween

So I'm going to make this topic and discuss some things about this particularily unique holiday many of us celebrate each year.

Some of them people want to hear, others maybe not so much

Halloween is a holiday in which children (usually, but I'll come to that later) go 'trick-or-treating' from house to house and recieve candy from 'oh so friendly' people. Who just love giving away candy to cute little munchkins

However, lets backtrace for a minute. Logically think of this.

Doesn't this go against almost everything we teach children?

-We tell them "don't talk to strangers".

Yet we have them barge on their property and ring their doorbell (sometimes multiple times which is harassment), do no less than beg for candy, and then be off on their way? Isn't this a bit hypocritical?

If one thinks of it, is this not a method of INSTRUMENTAL LEARNING? In which a stimuli is presented to a subject followed by a reward... but only if the subject does a particular thing (animals are trained in such a fashion of retrograde instrumental learning).

The candy is recieved, at the very least a feeling of 'profit' is enstilled into these children and then they waddle away to the next house. Eager to obtain more candy from willing donators.

If you break it down into segments from here, most children these days are given an allowance. Lets say $5 a week. This gets them, in this day and age, perhaps 5 chocolate bars (but most stores charge even more than that so....). So then they go trick-or-treating and make a profit.

Obviously, to even a child, this will (at least subconsciously) cause the child to formulate the idea that begging -> rewards. Or that others can provide what their parents cannot, or other undesireable things.

Don't believe me? Look up cases of isntrumental learning, or even classical conditioning may play minor roles here. Stimuli presented -> followed by an expected result.

No, I am not stating that I want all children to be 'antisocial'. But, if you think about it, is this really the form of human-human interactions you want the next generation to have? (I know most of us want to strangle the player that spams "kinah plz" to us ingame!)

#2: Oftentimes people setup questionable appratuses/'funhouses'. Sometimes these are comrpised of random 4x4's that they had laying around from renovations, lawnmowers, airblowers puffing up bags to make "ghosts", electrical cables running through paper, cardboard, etc.

Overall. An engineer probably has heartfailure when attempting to fathom what was crossing these individual's minds.

While I'm not saying people are ignorant, it hasn't been just once that there has been an accident. I personally recall an entire "makeshift roof" for a house falling down and causing spinal damage to a few children who were out for a night of "candy collecting".

Personally, I think the idea is darling, but perhaps... we should leave those for the festitities in which trained (and hopefully qualified) engineers are involved?

#3: Let me just put this here. I remember this when I was a baby, or more like my parents love referencing it.... @_@

Sadly. Yes. Still to this day :S

[youtube]5AuLkMBAFZg[/youtube]

And what part of "DON'T PUT IT IN YOUR MOUTH" have we forgotten (aside from prostitutes, at least they are being paid for... *ahem*)?

It is not unheard of for candy to have razorblades in it, poisons, 'drugs' that give diarrhea and bad stomach aches. Sometimes even just 'unsanitary conditions'.

Afterall, you are recieving candy from people who you don't know! You don't know whether they even washed their hands after they last went to the loo before handing you the candy! Whos to say (although extreme I guess?) that they didn't sneeze on the candy?

And last time I checked, tootsie rolls are not PERFECTLY sealed. (Although logically speaking, you take the wrapper of X candy and then touch X candy itself and eat it, transferring it anyhow.)

What about expiration dates? Are we to assume that X person didn't just slide you the remnants of last-years candy they didn't hand out? Most bags of chips DO have expiration dates... but chocolate?

I personally haven't seen a experation date on a chocolate bar and I live in Canada! (Where we have more than superficial nutritional facts.)

So, do you really wanna put that in your mouth?

#4:

Most parents let their children wander alone.

Since when was it a moral leap to let them wander at night... alone? Unsupervised and prolly with their 'friends'? (And a lot are 'solo').

Perhaps its not the brightest idea to let a child/kid out at night unsupervised. There are all SORTS of joyful people around during that night looking for rather disturbing things.

So, why, on halloween... does that change?



But now let's delve into other topics

#5: Teenagers.... teenagers and sometimes even 20 year old ADULTS go trick-or-treating.

Perhaps this is disheartening, or just plain disturbing, but when you get a adult knocking on your front-door then you know that something is WEIRD. (Perhaps just them?)

And, ironically, this is becoming more and more common.

Last time I checked, no one was interested in giving candies out to people older than their 15 year old daughter who said "lol halloween is for little kids, i'm going partying".

Perhaps a little bit of an ego burn should help these ... unique... individuals out?





Now some lore

Halloween: Kid's Treat or Pagan Trick?

Halloween is considered by many to be the date in which the "veil" is thinnest. Magical events happen, and other blessed oddities. It is related to so many 'evil' individuals that it is not even amusing to think of listing them all off of the top of my head.

But look up some Halloween lore It's more than just a 'farmers' holiday.

Mindyou the article I linked is somewhat 'righteous' on the topic which makes it a bit ill, some parts are interesting such as:

"October 31st was celebrated by the Druids with many human sacrifices and a
festival honoring their sun god and Samhain, the lord of the dead. They believed
that the sinful souls of those who died during the year were in a place of
torment, and would be released only if Samhain was pleased with their
sacrifices. "

=] good reads are abound




So remember on this Holiday to stay safe and stay smart.

 

tl;dr

I'm going trick or treating now. x:

 

I burnt you from the like future and to the past.

Daymn boi D:

 

You're overthinking this a bit Aegis. It's just a time for kids and adults to dress up, have fun, go door to door and let the neighbors ooh and ah over your child's costume. As a parent, we already know what houses to not go to. In this day and age you find more and more people giving out other things besides candies - mini granola bars, fruit snacks (full of sugar too but slightly better than candy), and little halloweeny toys.

It's not about begging, etc. It's just for fun only. In this day and age it personally disgusts me that so much of the fun I enjoyed as a child - dressing up in my costume for school, having HALLOWEEN Parties instead of fall festivals, having Christmas parties and actually exchanging presents instead of winter parties, has been taken away b/c of people overthinking these things. It's just ridiculous. They're children ffs - let them enjoy being kids.

As far as the religious thing goes - my sister wont let her kids celebrate Halloween b/c she considers it the Devil's Holiday. They werent told stories about Santa Clause either b/c my brother in law was so upset when he was a child and found out there was no Santa. Same thing applies - they're kids - let them enjoy their childhood.

 

[video=youtube;nA8Of2_5bsI]http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA8Of2_5bsI[/video]

 

Ah, trick-or-treating back then...

-grabs a bucket- Well I'm off. =P

 

who said i was going alone!

 

It's more of a demand for candy, than it is begging. "Trick or treat" is an ultimatum which comes the early days of Halloween when people would go around playing "tricks" on people, which usually ended up being busting out windows with rocks, putting buggies up on stacks of hay(depending on where you were), to even putting bars of soap on railroads to make cars derail.

 

Just for you, my dear sir,

 

Thumbs up for that. And you're right let kids be kids. Coz personally I haven't experienced trick-or-treating when I was a toddler. My childhood was boring but still it's not too late for me I'm still 17. It's never too late to be childlike and enjoy kiddie stuffs. nuff said~~

 

I remember when i went trick-or-treating with my friends one night
the lady was like 'trick' and we shot her ... with water guns and ran off xD

 

DEAR AEGIS,

Guess you didn't enjoyed your childhood that much too ei mate? :lol:

 

The thrill of emptying your trick or treat bag onto your floor and swimming in them candies and om nom nom

 

Just because I bring up valid points that people tend to dislike doesn't mean I didn't have a good childhood ;p

Although I am glad I am not one of the children, when I was one, that is in the ER vomiting consistently. Because my parents actually cared to look through the items collected.

And its safe to say that not all the time that I post are these things MY PERSONAL OPINION

Although in this instance I really do feel some of these points should be remembered before one goes gallavanting around in today's society. Anyone thinking lesser is either blissfully naive or a fool.

 

Goober Aegis...i'm dressing up and i am 28 XD...my mom is even dressing up and she is like hmm 40 something muhahaha.

 

Oh dressing up is totally fine xD

But I'm sure you don't go around neighborhoods knocking on peoples door to get candy xD

 

OH YES I DOOOO muhahaha...no really i do o3o...and i have good excuses to do it now too muhaha...KIDS, my kids love it and i do too...im like gimme some canddyyyyy XD trololol <3 <3

 

I wish I can go trick-or-treating too. And uhm err Mr. Aegis. Can I visit your house and ask for some candies? :lol:

 

One of the haunted houses I used to trick-or-treat had people under tables grabbing you by the foot to freak you out. I stomped as many of them as I could and I think I accidentally cracked one of their hands....Was just a thing-of-the-moment-reaction ">_>

 

[video=youtube;RPPsf-Mi8FY]http/www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPPsf-Mi8FY[/video]