The sun begins to set on a cool October night as adults prepare their bowls of candy for the children that they are expecting to appear. As the first child arrives at a home, a man appears from behind his door and greets the child, asking “what are you supposed to be” or commenting on how cute they look. As the children come and go and the sun disappears, a new atmosphere takes over the neighborhoods. Teenagers begin to crawl out of their rooms into the dark night and roam through the suburbs. For them, it is a way to have fun and get free candy, but some adults would argue that it is not appropriate and that they are stealing Halloween away from the younger kids.
Usually, adults who give out candy think it is strange when teenagers go to their homes asking for candy when they do not even attempt to wear a costume, and some even think these teens are too old to go Trick-or-Treating.
“I’m going Trick-or-Treating with my friends,” Suzannah Merritt, sophomore, said, “but I’m not dressing up because I don’t like to; I just want candy.”
When going out Trick-or-Treating, teenagers should avoid the ‘I didn’t buy a costume’ excuse because parents do not want to give candy to those who do not try.
“When [teenagers] don’t even make an effort to dress up and they come to my house wearing baseball caps, I torture them at the door by asking them what they are supposed to be,” Coleen Daniell, known by some as ‘Safety Mom’, said, “still I don’t blame them for being out, they are just trying to have fun and be a kid for as long as possible.”
Despite the number of people who do not like to dress up, there are a lot of people who still do, regardless of their age.
“I think dressing up is awesome,” Thomas Henshaw, Halloween City employee, said, “I would go to the club in my costume if I wanted to; life is all about fun.”
Some teenagers would prefer to stay home or go to a haunted house rather than go Trick-or-Treating.
“My mom is making me go because I have a 12 year old little brother so I can’t really get out of it,” Samantha Pasalic, senior, said, “I am definitely not dressing up, I don’t want to waste my time shopping for a costume.”
Halloween costumes can be really cool, however there are a lot of strange ones out there.
“The strangest Halloween costume I have ever seen is a fat ballerina,” Henshaw said, “and the other day we had some guys come in and try on fairy costumes, it was really weird.”
Strangely enough, there are people who forget that Halloween only comes once a year.
“I got really bored last November, so at 6:30 in the morning I dressed up in my penguin costume and rang a stranger’s doorbell” Austin Payne, freshman, said. “A lady opened the door and I said ‘Trick-or-Treat’, she was really confused and worried because she didn’t have any candy. I guess she really thought it was Halloween because she looked tired, so I said ‘I am sorry it’s not really Halloween and I walked away. I decided against going to another person’s house after that.”