Whatever happened to the good old Halloween nights?

BY SALLY FRIEDMAN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

LIFESOUNDS

Somewhere, embedded in long-buried brain cells, are memories of Halloween in the neighborhood where I grew up. Those memories are sweet, if sketchy. It's another way of saying that Halloween was fun — but hardly the gigantic spectacle it's turned into today.

If memory serves me, about a week before the big night, my mother would fashion some home-made costumes for her two daughters. The themes were pretty standard: we alternated between being princesses, ballerinas, and, if we were feeling reckless, pirates.

On Halloween night, my mom or dad would escort us to the homes of neighbors where the grown-ups would gossip and we'd eye the candy selection like the little vultures we were under the costumes and makeup. As we got older, the status symbol was to go out later — way after dark — and without a parent in tow to make us feel babyish.

And that was that. It was a big night, but it surely didn't take on the epic proportions that Halloween does now.

Six weeks before the holiday, our granddaughter Emily and her friends were already frantic. What would they BE for Halloween? These six-year-olds had already bought into the hype that has made this simple holiday into yet another excuse for conspicuous consumption and yes, some degree of anxiety.

Our 10-year-old grandson, a bit less concerned, could still tell me precisely how he'd dress up as a super-hero whose name eludes me, and how his little friend Danny was going to be his partner — or was it his super-hero arch enemy? Who can remember?

Halloween is no longer a matter of putting a pumpkin in the window and calling it a day. We're now talking major, sweeping embellishments. In some neighborhoods, there seems to be a fierce, if unspoken competition, for the most decorated house.

In stores, I sense a frantic urgency about seizing those hideous packaged costumes — now up in the $20 range for starters. What do families with four children do?

I'm left with the same sinking feeling I have about so much of American culture: we are poster children for wretched excess in too many things.

Our homes are too big, our cars are too expensive, we eat too much, we drink too much and now we overdo every holiday and season. Moderation has lost its meaning, let alone its inherent benefits.

I asked my daughters whether they thought of making costumes for their kids, reminding them that as inept as I've always been, I somehow managed to create their Halloween costumes out of odd household flotsam and jetsam — and some degree of ingenuity.

Nancy, with her three little hooligan boys, was too busy even to consider it. Jill said she'd love to — but neighborhood peer pressure dictated that the latest, trendiest character be immortalized on Trick or Treat night. And Amy, the mother of two little ones, will settle for bunny ears and a pre-packaged pumpkin suit.

So I'm left to lament the same thing generations before me have: whatever happened to the good old days when everything was better? When life was simpler, but richer. When things cost less but meant more.

Of course I'll be there on Halloween night greeting the kids who bang on our door with their customized trick-or-treat bags, demanding their ransom. And I'll pretend to be scared, awed, delighted and impressed by their store-bought get-ups.

But I can't help wishing that we were back to the days when less was definitely more.

Sally Friedman is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, resident of Moorestown, and longtime contributor to local, regional and national publications. The mother of three has seven grandchildren and is the wife of retired New Jersey Superior Court judge Victor Friedman. She can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .