As Halloween quickly approaches, many people will reflect on their experiences with the spooky time of year when they were younger. For many people, Halloween meant dressing up as whoever or whatever they wanted and getting enough free candy from people to make them sick. Some would go to haunted houses and watch horror movies to take the scary component of Halloween very seriously. Regardless of how people celebrated Halloween when they were younger, almost everyone can recognize that how they celebrated and viewed it changed as they got older. For some, it was a gradual process, and for others, it was very sudden. Oftentimes in the media, Halloween is portrayed as a holiday for little kids that people “grow out of” as they become teenagers. It is possible that as one gets older, they do not celebrate Halloween as intensely as they did when they were younger because of societal pressure. I interviewed one underclassman and one upperclassman to see how people’s perspectives on Halloween have changed as they got older.
Freshman, Julie Welty (she/her), told me that in elementary school “We would have a Halloween party in our class with a lot of food, decorations, fun games, and everyone would have cool costumes. And we would all hang out”. In middle school. “We would all dress up in costumes, and during our lunch we would have a costume competition with different categories, like spooky and funny,” This year, Julie plans to “Probably dress up in a costume and go trick or treat with some friends and may hang out at one of our houses before or after,” she explained. My last question for Julie was if she had ever felt pressure to view or celebrate Halloween differently as she got older. She told me, “I don’t, I just do what I want to during Halloween and dress up as what I want to”.
Junior, Eli Avery (he/him), told me that in elementary school “I would usually get dressed up and go trick or treating with some friends.” “Middle school, it was honestly similar,” he explained, “Different friend group, usually, and often more rapidly improvised costumes”. I asked him how he celebrates Halloween now. He said, “You know, the last few years I’ve been dressing up and usually going with my brother. This year, I’m not sure yet, I don’t have any plans”. I asked if he ever felt pressure to view or celebrate Halloween differently as he got older. “I mean, yeah, there’s the obvious, just feels weird to go ring people’s doorbells, but aside from that, no, not too much,” he explained.
The media’s portrayal of Halloween is that people “grow out of it” as they get older. Some people definitely do grow out of Halloween. This is expected because everyone’s relationship with Halloween changes as they get older. People usually don’t celebrate Halloween the same way when they are young children compared to when they are in high school or adults. People can still have a lot of fun with Halloween as they get older, but not in the same way as when they were little kids.
