It’s forty minutes past the kids’ bedtime and it’s too dark to see how many shots of tiny boxes of Nerds they’ve knocked back in the last half hour. Their little hearts are pumping a mixture of Smarties, M&Ms and Kit Kats. They go from walking very slowly with their heads in their Halloween bags to all-out, run-from-that-burning-building sprints to the next doorbell. Like a flock of rabid stray dogs they swarm from house to house in search of a never-ending supply of free sugar from smiling grown-ups. It is now an hour past their bedtime. They have school the next day. We have work. The World Series is on… Who in their right mind sanctioned this grade school cocktail of dextrose-fueled lunacy? That’s right… We, the parents, did… and it’s high time we got our heads on straight and did something about it.
PROBLEM ONE: WAYYY TOO MANY HALLOWEEN EVENTS
Wait, so we have a “book parade” at school on October 26th? Then there is a Halloween Fair or Town “Scary” Square event or whatever on the 29th? And then, finally, there’s Halloween on the 31st? My kids have to dress up three times and get candy three times over five days??? Umm, no. This is just plain dumb. I have a crazy idea… How about we have Halloween on one day. I have the perfect day to have it on. It’s called…
Halloween!
Wouldn’t that be brilliant? And that leads to a fix for my next idea…
PROBLEM TWO: WAYYY TOO LATE TO GO TRICK OR TREATING FOR LITTLE KIDS
I get that you want to have a costume parade at school. I’m fine with it. It’s cute. The kids love it. I get it… Where they lose me is not having it on Halloween… Soooo… What if the kids have their dress-up day on Halloween itself, then go home in their costumes after school and everyone with kids under 8-years-old agrees to trick or treat around 4pm or 5pm? Would that be nuts? The kids can stay in their costumes (no changing), then they can trick or treat before dinner (no sugar-fueled fighting at bed-time and/or puking) and for little kids they can go to bed before 10pm. Yes? No? Oh that’s right, lots of people, me included, can’t leave work in the middle of the week early to take kids trick-or-treating… Totally understandable… And that leads to my next and biggest fix…
PROBLEM THREE: ALWAYS HAVING HALLOWEEN ON OCTOBER 31st
I get why Christmas has to be on the same day every year regardless of the day of the week. Same with New Year’s and July 4th and several other major holidays… But Halloween? Really? Who would be offended by moving this to the last Friday in October every year? I went into a Wikipedia wormhole on this and I won’t bore you with the results, but it’s safe to say that for a holiday celebrated with Snickers bars, kids dressed as Iron Man and glow-in-the-dark skulls on people’s doors, anyone who would be genuinely upset by a slight shift in days each year is a little too invested in Styrofoam witch legs sticking out of their lawns.
Who loses if Halloween is the last Friday every October? Nobody. People can leave work a few hours early on a Friday like many do anyway; kids can have their school parade before the weekend and roll right into trick-or-treating; and if it runs a little late there’s no school or work the next day to get up for… And, here’s the kicker, it’s Friday! I knew you’d be on board.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jon Finkel is the author of “Mean” Joe Greene: Built By Football, Heart Over Height w/ 3x NBA Dunk Champion Nate Robinson, Forces of Character w/ 3x Super Bowl Winner and Fighter Pilot, Chad Hennings, Jocks-in-Chief and the best selling fatherhood fitness book, The Dadvantage.
His new biography on Heisman Trophy Winner and New York Knicks veteran Charlie Ward comes out December 2017.