By Lauren Hyland
Orange frosted sugar cookies and that giant pumpkin of Charlie Brown’s, while dressed in an uncomfortable but well-planned costume from Party City, are core memories for any 2000s kid longing for the comforting past of Halloween. From class parties to trick-or-treating around the neighborhood, Halloween was definitely a night to look forward to with many key components that contributed to the anticipation. Now that we’re older, has that night changed?
Disney Channel: Monstober
A prominent unforgettable Halloween perk as a child was Disney Channel’s Monstober. All month long Disney Channel ran the best fall-embedded episodes of all our favorite shows and new movies that captured the spooky ambiance that arrived with the weather change. From the 1998 movie Halloweentown to the 2012 episode of Jessie titled The Whining, Disney in October set the scene for the holiday’s feeling.
Class Parties
Class parties are also a stand-out event of Halloween. The teacher-picked movie caused a shared fright with your classmates as each of you admired the other’s costumes, all while eating the orange cream-filled Halloween Oreos. Maybe you even got to participate in a Halloween parade where everyone walked around the school and showed off the costumes either worked incredibly hard on by your mother or worked equally as hard on by you having to make a decision at Spirit Halloween.
Trick or Treat
Another marvelous aspect of this exciting night was trick-or-treating. While you may still participate in the act, trick-or-treating as a kid was the best part of the holiday. Free candy from strangers was any kid’s dream at the time. Some may argue, however, that the post-trick-or-treating sorting and trading was the best part, bartering your candy as if its worth was greater than a short sugar high.
Decor
From fake spider webs to poorly carved pumpkins, the decor around this time was sure to frighten any kid. Memories of being too scared to walk up to a certain house intimidated by the towering ghost as tall as the Empire State Building and the small presumably fake spiders at my feet are always refreshed when decorating for Halloween as I’ve grown up.
Halloween now
Though all the previous experiences and items mentioned can be captured again, childhood memories of Halloween haunt our past. The magical experience of the gruesome holiday has yet to be seized since we’ve conquered the fear of fake vampires in front yards. Now the holiday has become less about the magic for us and more about that of others who have not yet conquered such fear, those who are still intelligent enough to know how to ward off werewolves even though they’re only six years old. We evolve and our experiences, Halloween being one of many, evolve right beside us.
