The ironic part is that places that have All Saint’s Day as a legal holiday aren’t All Hallows Eve hotspots. Or rather, it’s a really new phenomena, like only in the past couple of decades new. And though I would like to pretend I had something to do with it, the truth is that the giant beer and alcohol conglomerates have been the driving force. They distribute tonnes of marketing materials for pubs and bars to host Halloween parties, the candy industry is still lagging here in Germany.
I plan on spending the 31st at home, an evening like any other.
My last place was like that too. It was a quintessentially suburban US neighbourhood. Houses close enough together for little legs to walk, quiet, safe, and everyone put out jack-o-lanterns and gave out candy. It was fun to be part of the experience for kids that I loved when I was their age. It was sort of a responsibility because the neighbourhood was well known as ideal for trick-or-treating and you could tell the kids who’s parents had driven them in from less nice places for this experience. Those kids always got extra candy from me.
We haven’t handed out candy in years, too busy trick-or-treating, but the kids who live outside our neighborhood, or with cobbled hand-made costumes always got extra candy. Jr. Kidd doesn’t want to walk the neighborhood this year, so we’ll keep the porch light on.
