We've come a long way

since I was 7 years old scouting the neighborhood for all the chocolate treats that I could possibly find for my Halloween bag. Those were the days when Halloween costumes were made out of plastic bag material and your favorite characters features and outfits were printed on the front. Maybe you remember it too, the costumes resembled hospital robes and had to be tied in the back. By the end of two days of wearing the thing, once at school and on Halloween night the costume was completely trashed and torn up, holes visible from just about every angle. The plastic mask barely hung to my face because my mom hand jimmy rigged the busted elastic string to each ear.

THOSE were the days, when cases of razor blades in popcorn balls started scaring parents into taking their children's Halloween loot to the nearest hospital to have it run thru an x-ray before you were able to touch one bit of candy. If you were lucky, your parents still let you trick or treat despite the fact that you would have to wait in a line of almost 100 other kids waiting on your candy to be cleared for consumption.

For those of you who weren't very lucky, there was the mall. Endless rows of stores that stayed open  handing out the "safe to eat" candy, forget the pure joy of being out in the dark. Our parents enjoyed the comfort of knowing that one, you wouldn't die of candy poisoning and two they wouldn't have to go thru the endless task of inspecting every single piece of sugar you put in your mouth.

Halloween was always a fun time despite the "challenges" that we faced. My mom would stick decals on the windows and door and we'd be so excited we could hardly contain ourselves. Oh to be a kid again at Halloween!

As a parent I can now  understand the paranoia of what kind of candy has made it's way into the bags of my children. However, I'm so thankful that the day of plastic bag costumes have come and gone. Halloween is a big deal for our family, we finally got up all the decorations, spider webs, strobe lights and all. Here come the next 2 days of overly hyper children that are strung out on sugar!

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