A few days ago, my daughter asked me if I liked Halloween.
“No,” I said. “It’s gauche.”
She wasn’t surprised by my predictably grumpy answer. I dislike Halloween, not because there’s anything wrong with it, but because I can be more sour than is healthy for a human being. In fact, I’m sour on all holidays because I resent consumer society dictating that I must be ebullient about something I don’t particularly care about.
But if I’m honest, Halloween can and should be defended. The spectacle of children ranging from three to thirteen going door to door in strange neighborhoods is more than quaint. It’s a ritual in which suburbanites acknowledge that hiding inside their comfortable enclaves is unhealthy and reflects a primitive fear better suited to terrified peasants hunkering down in their potato cellars during shortages and outright famines. Halloween issues a beckoning call: “Hey, suburbanites, it’s time to crawl out of your potato cellars, show some generosity, and engage with the world.”
Halloween is really about resisting the impulse to hide inside our drywall cocoons and tell the rest of the world to fend for itself. It reminds suburbanites that they need to emerge from their proverbial Bat Caves and acknowledge the existence of their neighbors.
Halloween is about trust. You trust strangers to walk onto your property in a polite, civil manner. In return, these strangers trust that the candy you give them is, aside from its potent diabetes-inducing properties, safe for human consumption. Pleasantries are exchanged. The ritual of giving and receiving unfolds with good cheer. For one evening, we affirm the principle that a healthy society depends on cooperation, generosity, and trust among its members.
Halloween is about love. About a dozen times during the evening as I hand out candy, a precious three or four-year-old will struggle to carry an oversized candy bag to my doorway and is so shy that he or she can barely manage to say “trick or treat.” I look at the child and then look at the doting parents standing by my front gate. I know that look. My heart melts because I am witnessing the most precious thing on earth. My inner grouch has been wonderfully annihilated.
Halloween, then, is an antidote to suburban cynicism, withdrawal and misanthropy. The problem isn’t that we celebrate Halloween on October 31 and open our doors to the world. The problem is that we open our doors only once a year.
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