It’s a breezy Halloween evening in 2011 and you are getting ready to go trick-or-treating with your friends. You’ve put on your costume and anxiously wait by the front door with your empty pillowcase that will soon be filled with an array of candy.
“Please can we go now?” you shout as your parents take their sweet old time gathering their belongings for the night.
Your mother rushes over to you holding your least favorite article of clothing — your jacket — and ushers you to put it on.
“You don’t want to be cold,” she explains. You reluctantly shrug the jacket on and race out of your front door.
With excitement, you briskly walk to your friend’s house with your parents not too far behind. Today is one of your favorite days of the year, and a day that parents often dread: You and your friends get to gallivant across your neighborhood going door to door for candy while also filling up on loads of sugar on the way.
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When you get home from your energizing night of trick-or-treating, you dump your candy-filled pillowcase on the floor of your living room. For about an hour, you sort the candy by brand and count your winnings from the night. After the sorting bonanza finishes, your mother tells you that you can have one more piece of candy before going to bed — you choose the king-sized Kit Kat, of course.
This holiday becomes a staple of your childhood and an eagerly awaited tradition. Each year, you and your friends race around your neighborhood for candy while the parents come along to supervise and struggle to keep up with the enthusiastic pace of the young trick-or-treaters.
As you get older, you finally get the freedom to ditch your parents and trick-or-treat alone with you and your friends. All night, you stay out and walk around snatching candy from door to door.
However, once you reach high school and then college, the tradition of trick-or-treating starts to slowly fade. Racing around the neighborhood turns into partying in someone’s basement, and counting candy turns into counting how much you had to drink the next morning. You like this new and seemingly mature change, but you often find yourself reminiscing about what Halloween used to be.
Thus, the question remains: Who decided that we should bid farewell to the innocent joy of trick-or-treating, and why did it become socially unacceptable to continue this beloved tradition into our young adult years?
In high school, it is easy to conform to what is said to be cool and what is deemed to be embarrassing or childish. But as broke college students, we all know how good it feels to receive free food. If anything, we need a free sweet treat now more than ever.
Trick-or-treating should remain an all-ages affair, and campus Halloween celebrations should reflect this spirit. Before you dive into the wild Halloween parties at the fraternities or hit up KAMS or The Red Lion for a drink, why not kick off your night with nostalgic fun?
Fraternities, sororities and campus organizations could turn into hot spots, handing out different treats to everyone who wants to relive the joy of Halloween. It’s the perfect blend of nostalgia and celebration, creating an unforgettable Halloween experience for everyone.
Sofia is a junior in LAS.
