Halloween is one of my favorite holidays--right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas. But there's one thing that Halloween offers that no other holiday can: an excuse to eat unholy amounts of CANDY.
Sure, you get candy on Easter--chocolate eggs and marshmallow peeps--but you don't get much of them, and what's available is squirreled away in cheap plastic eggs, deliberately hidden from you as part of a ploy to thwart your seasonal candy consumption (if your parents, like mine, thought an Easter egg hunt entailed burying the eggs).
As a child, I spent hours methodically hunting for these capsules of candy, unearthing mounds of dirt and shrubbery in my quest for the sacred Cadbury Creme Egg.
How were my efforts rewarded, you ask.
Well, with the exception of a few meager treats (not nearly enough to satisfy my youthful cravings), I was left feeling disillusioned and depressed. Where were the fonts of Easter sweets, flowing plentiful with candy-colored eggs and jelly beans and chocolate delights? I felt betrayed.
Never again.
Now I don't mean to malign Easter; I'm sure there are many people who genuinely enjoy this holiday. Sadly, I am not one of them. My experiences have forever stained this once beloved Sunday.
Halloween, on the other hand, has always proven pleasant and enjoyable. Without all the work of hunting and digging, Halloween offers children (and adults) a chance to gorge themselves on something that, on any other day of the year, would be considered unwise in such large proportions (fools!).
It's the one day of the year when we are permitted to indulge ourselves--in both candy and costumes (and peep into strangers' homes when they open the door).
Imagine being showered with handfuls of sweets upon uttering the simple phrase: "Trick or Treat!" That's fun and easy!
And the candy you acquire is so plentiful that it cannot possibly be consumed by one person in one night (unless you enjoy tummy aches, sugar rushes and childhood obesity). Spread it out over several days, and enjoy the unique sensation of feeling utterly sick of chocolate after ingesting your 32nd piece of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. There's nothing quite so wonderful as overglutting yourself on candy. No feeling on earth that compares to the feeling of revulsion when you've simply had TOO MUCH.
Truly, Halloween is a modern miracle.
Even those not-so-great candies can yield massive amounts of FUN. You know, those pieces that you don't really want. I call them The Undesirables, and they make great bargaining chips in the post-ToT trading.
I have such fond memories of Halloween: returning home after a successful night of Trick-or-Treating; spilling my pillowcase of candy onto the kitchen table; sorting the good stuff from the bad; ranking them; and then engaging with my brother in tense trade negotiations, in which we sought to offload our bad stock and gain a few new goodies.
Our parents would be on standby, greedily eyeing our treasure-troves, ready to intervene should a dispute arise (and collect for their services, of course). And when the trading was complete, both parties satisfied with the outcome, we'd race off to hide our candy in super secret hidey-holes. Mine was in a shoebox at the back of my closet. My brother's was under his bed (shhh...don't tell him I told you!).
If adults were allowed to beg for candy along with kids, then I would totally be out there this Halloween, costume, pillowcase, and all.
Sadly, it is frowned upon.
I'll have to settle for handing out the candy instead, surreptitiousy sneaking pieces from the bowl and mourning my lost childhood.
Oh, Halloween, how I love thee!
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