Trick or treat is the best part.
Children approaching houses dressed in costume. Bag open to receive a treat. Chocolate was always the best one. As a child my mother would eagerly await my return with the bag and then over the next few weeks raid my stash of chocolate. She dressed me as a clown. Complete with a little squeezy horn. A good fit actually. RIP Mum.
It's a great holiday for the kids. Not at all scary for them. Just fun with candy treats galore. They are so cute dressed in their costumes. I was in the store the other day and watched as a little boy, maybe six years old picked out the most awful mask on the display. A Frankenstein type mask with scars and blood dripping. Just horrible. He played a joke on his mother and big sister who were in the next aisle. He suddenly came around the corner and growled at them with the mask on. They pretended to be frightened and everyone laughed. They knew behind the horror was someone who was not at all horrible.
I began to think that it may be like that in real life also.
Approaching a home and begging actually reflects a timeless tradition in some of the older cultures, like the Vedic culture of India. Students and renunciates would go daily to beg some rice or grains or other edibles from householders. It benefitted the householder to give in charity. And the students and renunciates lived solely by begging like this.
In recent times there has been a bit of a problem that can happen. That is why it is best to let the children approach only the houses of people are known in the neighborhood. Unscrupulous and definitely deranged people have been known to contaminate the sweets. The famous one is the razor blade in an apple.
Great holiday. Lots of fun for everyone...