So today is Halloween and I’m looking forward to giving out candy to the trick-or-treaters tonight. It’s so much fun to see all the costumes and excited faces! The front porch is all decked out and we have full-size candy bars and l will also give Halloween bookmarks along with the candy. I read an article this week that said Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are the most popular Halloween candy to give and receive. The most popular non-chocolate candies are Skittles and Sour Patch Kids.
I also read recently about a viral trend of people passing out potatoes on Halloween. It started as a joke to see what kids would choose, candy or potatoes, and it was such a novel choice that kids started choosing the potatoes over candy from the candy bowls! What a funny new tradition for Halloween!
For the past month, I’ve been reading through the stack of notebooks I found at my mom’s house after she passed. I knew that she enjoyed writing but until I found her notebooks, I had no idea what a prolific writer she was.
In one of the notebooks I read this week, mom talked about what Halloween was like for her as a girl in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. She said that Halloween was a week-long event and kids could trick-or-treat every night of Halloween week. She wrote that some people gave out full-size candy bars which cost five cents each, but most people gave out apples, caramel apples and other homemade treats such as popcorn balls, nuts, fudge and cookies. She also said a few people gave their spare change to trick-or-treaters at Halloween.
When I was a kid, my mom used to make popcorn balls every year at Halloween. I’ll have to look through her recipes to see if that one is in there!
Like me, my mom loved making up her costumes from items they had at home. She said that most people would buy a half mask to wear that only covered their eyes and cost less than a dollar at the dime store. Children trick-or-treated by themselves, and she wrote that parents never went with them. If a house gave out treats that they really liked, the children would go back night after night. It was so interesting to read what Halloween was like for my mom and for other kids 75 years ago!
Yesterday, I had the opportunity to read my book, “The Halloween Scare” for my grandson, Nolan’s preschool class. Those of you who read my blog regularly probably remember Nolan from my blog post, “Through the Eyes of a Grand Child”.
The children in the class were all dressed in orange and black and had already had their Halloween celebration by the time I arrived. I was to read for them at the end of their school day. As you can imagine, there was great excitement and energy in the room!
I remember how I felt as a kid the day before Halloween. Oh, the anticipation.
Before I began reading, I asked if they knew whose grandma I was and of course, they all knew. I read my book for them and on the last page, I showed them where illustrator, Vicki Killion Guess, had painted baby Nolan and his brother and sister into the picture in 2021. (Vicki also painted some of her grandchildren in that picture.)
After I finished reading, Nolan passed out the bookmarks for his classmates to take home, and they all told me what they were going to dress up as for Halloween. Most of the characters I knew but some were from current movies for kids that I haven’t seen. It was great fun to spend time with them, and I hope having his grandma read at his school will be a fun memory for my grand grandson.
