When Are We Too Old for Halloween?
November 4, 2021
By Alex Shores
Remember the elementary school years of trick or treating? Dressing up in a costume and going out with friends or siblings through your neighborhood, ringing doorbells, and coming home with candy that could last you weeks?
For many of us, Halloween has seemed to have lost this meaning. Or maybe its meaning has changed. Instead of dressing up and going trick or treating, we are either out partying or studying for some chemistry exam the next morning. One of those is obviously more fun than the other, but in either case, how we celebrate Halloween is entirely different. Most of us don’t have the time to go door-to-door trick or treating, or we deem it too “immature.”
But some remnants of Halloween still remain. You might walk into class and your professor or TA is handing out candy. Or, if you are like my roommate, maybe you buy bags and bags of candy to pass out to your friends and neighbors. So even if trick or treating is no longer the tradition as you get older, we are still surrounded by candy on this one day of the year.
And a surprising amount of college students still dress up in costumes. The mindset I witnessed in high school was quite the opposite, where teenagers dressing up in costumes were seen as more “childish.” But here in college, you will probably see hundreds of students walking down the city streets in costumes, likely headed to a Halloweekend party.
So maybe Halloween hasn’t actually changed that much as we’ve gotten older. But this leads to a bigger question. When are we too old for Halloween? I mean, how many adults do you see trick or treating or dressing up in costumes? One day that will be us, so when does that change happen? And why?
As many of us have already seen, Halloween is fun on the rare occasion that you have time. For me personally, I did not decide until the day of to dress up with my friends, because we all had exams the following week and were debating how much studying we would need to do. So I think the older we get, the more we have to prioritize other things over one fun night at the end of October.
There also is the childish aspect of it, too. Halloween is something we associate with being young, carefree, and goofy. When you think about it, putting on a costume and eating handfuls of candy does not sound like something an adult would do. And given that college students are nearing the finish line on their race to adulthood, maybe it is time to let go of Halloween and focus on our careers.
Or maybe not. I for one love candy, and I love dressing up in group costumes with friends. And, not to sound old, but given that youth only lasts so long, why not enjoy it a little longer? After all, it is only one night every 365 days…