Halloween now and Halloween then

How did your parents and grandparents celebrate Halloween when they were kids?
(Stuart Miles/FreeRangeStock.com)

As my husband fastened a Wonder Woman bracelet on our daughter for Halloween, I couldn’t help but think how far store-bought costumes have come since I was a kid. Complete with a tiara, leggings that look like boots, and all the textures of Wonder Woman’s “armor,” her costume leaves no mystery about who she’s dressed as.

When I was a kid, our costumes required the viewer to do some guesswork ... and probably some reading, too.

Back then, we had plastic masks with holes for the eyes, nose and mouth that didn’t line up with the face of anyone I knew.

And the costumes themselves looked ... sad. Like hospital gowns, you fastened them by tying two strings together at the back of your neck. The better ones showed the body of the character portrayed, but the name of the character was always on the costume somewhere. The others had a pattern and/or a logo. (Check out this page on the MEtv website. One year, I had the Laura Ingalls costume.)

Yes, costumes definitely improved over the past 40 years. But that got me thinking: What did my mom and dad’s costumes look like? Probably better than the ones we wore, because they likely were homemade and more realistic.

Then it occurred to me that I have no idea how or if my parents celebrated Halloween. My dad probably went trick-or-treating because he lived in an urban area. But my mom lived a mile or outside of a town of roughly 500 residents. It’s not like she could’ve just walked up and down the dirt road with no streetlights to go trick-or-treating. Though, if she had, it probably would’ve been fairly safe because her home was surrounded by those of aunts, uncles and lots of cousins.

So I sent Mom a text and asked whether she ever trick-or-treated. 

Nope, not once when she was a kid. She did, however, take my siblings and I trick-or-treating after we entered her life.

Mom said because she lived in the country when she was young, there wasn’t a place to go trick-or-treating, and her parents didn’t consider Halloween much of a holiday anyway. But she didn’t go completely without Halloween festivities, as her school held a carnival that drew everyone in the community to participate in games, cake walks, and other activities.

I didn’t think to ask whether she wore a costume at the carnival, so I still don’t know how she would’ve put one together.

But I’ll ask. And I won’t wait until 48 years to do so.