What does Halloween mean anymore? Once Halloween came around my freshman year, I didn’t really know what to think about it anymore. Do I go trick-or-treating? Hang out with friends? Or just nothing? I ended up going trick-or-treating, but didn’t enjoy it as much. As everyone gets older, the spirit of the holidays seem to fade (but not necessarily for everyone).

Halloween doesn’t seem to have a “set plan” for the day. On Thanksgiving, you eat with your family and give thanks. What about non-christians? In the winter around Hanukkah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa you hang around your family, open presents, and have Christmas dinner. But what about Halloween? When you were little you would dress up and go trick-or-treating and then come home and stuff your face with candy.

But now things seem different for some reason. Why can’t some of us just get dressed up and go out like we used to? For me, it just doesn’t feel right. I always think maybe I’ll do something fun, like go to a dress up party, but it never happens.

In the end, I usually hang out with my friends doing nothing related to Halloween, or just staying at home doing my homework (and eating candy of course).

I say I love Halloween, but do I really? I like the idea of it, and I like the whole season of fall, the apple and pumpkin picking, football games, soccer season. But my whole point here is, why does the meaning of Halloween change as we get older? Why do standards change, and why can’t we just dress up and run around trick-or-treated with our friends when we’re 16? There’s a part of me that wish nobody cared what other people thought or cared about what other people did. In everyone there’s got to be that part that doesn’t want to grow up. I wish that as we got older we could just hold onto those traditions we enjoyed as a child. So, in the end, I guess my point is, stop thinking about what others think get out there and trick or treat while you can and enjoy it, or just do whatever makes you happy on October 31.