Halloween 2018 came and went. It was fun. My kids, three and six, are at the right age for it. In fact, I'd say my oldest is at the beginning of his Halloween prime. From six to ten, Halloween is an absolutely magical holiday. Before that you're a bit too young to fully appreciate it, and after that, although you still have a few good years left, you already start to get the sense the end is near, and you start getting self-conscious about dressing up or doing anything that looks like it took "effort." Some older kids costumes are pretty weak. Like you'll see somebody wearing a Nationals cap and a batting glove and that's it: Hey, I'm Bryce Harper, give me some candy. Then at age thirteen or fourteen trick-or-treating isn't cool anymore.
After that it takes some years for Halloween to be fun again. You have to get to the point where you can go out to Halloween parties with friends and enjoy a night of alcohol-fueled silliness and debauchery. (Don Savage calls Halloween a "Straight Pride Parade," which is pretty funny and apt.) And then when you have kids, trick-or-treating is fun again. But from, like, 14 through 18 Halloween isn't such a great holiday. The main thing to do at that age is to go out and cause trouble, which usually doesn't end well. I might have done a bit of that in my day, but I don't remember causing much havoc. I think once I smashed a jack-o-lantern on the porch of a friend's asshole neighbor, but that's all I can recall (and he totally deserved it). Usually, I wanted to be trouble adjacent. I wanted to be in on the action, without being in on the action -- a (mostly) innocent bystander. What this typically meant in practice is that I would go out with a few friends, walk around the neighborhood looking for people we know and something to do, get bored and tired, and then go back to one of our houses and play video games.
I often wonder how different things would have been if I grew up in the age of cell phones and social media. I remember looking for people being a central part of my teenage social life. Like you'd just go to Jack In the Box or the bowling alley or something and hope to see people you know. And if you made plans with somebody and there was a missed connection, that might be it -- you just didn't see them for the night. It would be weird to be a kid now and always know where your friends are at all times -- to never have those nights where you just stayed home, because you couldn't get a hold of anybody and didn't know where they were. Or those nights when you were torn between waiting at home for a friend to call you back or going out and doing something else without them. You'd tell your parents: If JY calls, tell him to come to the $1 movie theater at 8:00.
An ironic thing, thinking back on those years, is that the mundane memories are actually the ones I cherish the most. I always wanted to have these "epic" nights like something out of Dazed and Confused, but it never happened (because life isn't a teen movie), but even those rare nights where something "crazy" did happen don't mean that much to me now. The memories I most value are the ones where it was just me and a few friends doing ordinary things -- playing video games, playing cards, goofing off, doing nothing. I took those times for granted, and it's something I miss so much now that I'm an adult and a family man and I don't have the time or space in my life to do those things.
Anyway...
Back to this Halloween, my youngest son dressed up like Gekko from PJ Masks and my oldest son went as a ninja. Our neighborhood really gets poppin' on Halloween, and a lot of it is row houses, packed tightly together, so the kids don't have to go far to get a lot of candy, so they both made out like bandits. In fact, Lil' S2 just tapped out after about a half-hour. He said, "My bucket's full," even though it was only three-quarters-full, and stopped going up to houses. Some of the other kids we were with were tired too, so we headed back, even though Lil' S1 would have stayed out all night if we let him.
As soon as we got home, we clandestinely took half their candy out of their buckets and hid it. They got way too much. I don't know what we will do with it. Probably disperse some it throughout the next year; probably throw some it away; probably eat some it ourselves. I've lost my taste for a lot of Halloween candy. I don't like that pure sugar taste anymore. I still like some of the chocolate bars, but the other stuff -- Smarties, Starburst, Nerds, Pixy Stix, Dum-Dums, Jolly Rancher, etc. -- I don't care for at all.
Here's my Halloween Candy Power Rankings:
5. Tootsie Rolls (classic): I like the texture more than the taste. I never want a tootsie roll, but if I'm really jonesing for something sweet, I will eat one. It's the methadone of Halloween candy.
4. Mini Kit Kat: Would be higher on my list if the dark chocolate version was more prevalent. I love the wafery snap when you bite into it, but I'm not huge on the milk chocolate coating (and I downright dislike the white chocolate variety).
3. Mini Snickers: This used to be number one on my list, but lately I've found they're just a tad too sweet. I love the salty crunch of the peanut, but they're slightly cloying overall.
2. Mini Twix: Put it in the refrigerator about a half hour before you want to eat it. The chocolate is firm, the caramel is chewy, and the cookie is still crisp. Delicious. One of my favorites as a kid that still holds up.
1. Hershey's Nuggets, Dark Chocolate with Almond: Simple, classic, delicious. Unfortunately, I rarely see these in my kids' buckets. Most kids prefer milk chocolate and chocolate without nuts, I think. Dark chocolate is sort of like the IPA of the candy world. It's for "dignified" adults of "refined" tastes -- for people who care about things like cocoa percentage. I don't know about all that. All I know is that when I put dark chocolate on my tongue, it's heavenly.
Until next time...
Oh, also, vote on Tuesday!
After that it takes some years for Halloween to be fun again. You have to get to the point where you can go out to Halloween parties with friends and enjoy a night of alcohol-fueled silliness and debauchery. (Don Savage calls Halloween a "Straight Pride Parade," which is pretty funny and apt.) And then when you have kids, trick-or-treating is fun again. But from, like, 14 through 18 Halloween isn't such a great holiday. The main thing to do at that age is to go out and cause trouble, which usually doesn't end well. I might have done a bit of that in my day, but I don't remember causing much havoc. I think once I smashed a jack-o-lantern on the porch of a friend's asshole neighbor, but that's all I can recall (and he totally deserved it). Usually, I wanted to be trouble adjacent. I wanted to be in on the action, without being in on the action -- a (mostly) innocent bystander. What this typically meant in practice is that I would go out with a few friends, walk around the neighborhood looking for people we know and something to do, get bored and tired, and then go back to one of our houses and play video games.
I often wonder how different things would have been if I grew up in the age of cell phones and social media. I remember looking for people being a central part of my teenage social life. Like you'd just go to Jack In the Box or the bowling alley or something and hope to see people you know. And if you made plans with somebody and there was a missed connection, that might be it -- you just didn't see them for the night. It would be weird to be a kid now and always know where your friends are at all times -- to never have those nights where you just stayed home, because you couldn't get a hold of anybody and didn't know where they were. Or those nights when you were torn between waiting at home for a friend to call you back or going out and doing something else without them. You'd tell your parents: If JY calls, tell him to come to the $1 movie theater at 8:00.
An ironic thing, thinking back on those years, is that the mundane memories are actually the ones I cherish the most. I always wanted to have these "epic" nights like something out of Dazed and Confused, but it never happened (because life isn't a teen movie), but even those rare nights where something "crazy" did happen don't mean that much to me now. The memories I most value are the ones where it was just me and a few friends doing ordinary things -- playing video games, playing cards, goofing off, doing nothing. I took those times for granted, and it's something I miss so much now that I'm an adult and a family man and I don't have the time or space in my life to do those things.
Anyway...
Back to this Halloween, my youngest son dressed up like Gekko from PJ Masks and my oldest son went as a ninja. Our neighborhood really gets poppin' on Halloween, and a lot of it is row houses, packed tightly together, so the kids don't have to go far to get a lot of candy, so they both made out like bandits. In fact, Lil' S2 just tapped out after about a half-hour. He said, "My bucket's full," even though it was only three-quarters-full, and stopped going up to houses. Some of the other kids we were with were tired too, so we headed back, even though Lil' S1 would have stayed out all night if we let him.
As soon as we got home, we clandestinely took half their candy out of their buckets and hid it. They got way too much. I don't know what we will do with it. Probably disperse some it throughout the next year; probably throw some it away; probably eat some it ourselves. I've lost my taste for a lot of Halloween candy. I don't like that pure sugar taste anymore. I still like some of the chocolate bars, but the other stuff -- Smarties, Starburst, Nerds, Pixy Stix, Dum-Dums, Jolly Rancher, etc. -- I don't care for at all.
Here's my Halloween Candy Power Rankings:
5. Tootsie Rolls (classic): I like the texture more than the taste. I never want a tootsie roll, but if I'm really jonesing for something sweet, I will eat one. It's the methadone of Halloween candy.
4. Mini Kit Kat: Would be higher on my list if the dark chocolate version was more prevalent. I love the wafery snap when you bite into it, but I'm not huge on the milk chocolate coating (and I downright dislike the white chocolate variety).
3. Mini Snickers: This used to be number one on my list, but lately I've found they're just a tad too sweet. I love the salty crunch of the peanut, but they're slightly cloying overall.
2. Mini Twix: Put it in the refrigerator about a half hour before you want to eat it. The chocolate is firm, the caramel is chewy, and the cookie is still crisp. Delicious. One of my favorites as a kid that still holds up.
1. Hershey's Nuggets, Dark Chocolate with Almond: Simple, classic, delicious. Unfortunately, I rarely see these in my kids' buckets. Most kids prefer milk chocolate and chocolate without nuts, I think. Dark chocolate is sort of like the IPA of the candy world. It's for "dignified" adults of "refined" tastes -- for people who care about things like cocoa percentage. I don't know about all that. All I know is that when I put dark chocolate on my tongue, it's heavenly.
Until next time...
Oh, also, vote on Tuesday!
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