Let’s face it. Halloween is a holiday for children. It involves pranks, candy, costumes, and decorations. Parents would never dream of leaving their children behind on Halloween or taking off on a whim to attend a party while their house sits vulnerable and candy-less at night. There are obligations involved with Halloween, which require of everyone a certain degree of adult responsibility.

Actual adults must prepare candy to distribute. Children who trick-or-treat usually find the occupants of their neighbors’ houses sitting close to the door with a pumpkin-shaped bowl in their hands, peeking out the window, and holding their breath every time a ghoul or a fairy princess makes its way up the steps.

Children, on the other hand, must exercise caution. Costumes need to be safe. Kids need to know not to speak to strangers, especially when it gets dark at night. They should also understand prior to beginning their rounds that there is a fine line between a silly, good-natured prank and actual vandalism. On Halloween, the kids take over and call the shots.

This holiday, which derives from the Celtic festival known historically as Samhain, should be child-friendly and thereby classy. When I was a kid, I used to draw my own illustrations of ghosts, witches, and monsters, and tape them around the house on all the windows since neither of my parents considered Halloween important enough for actual decorations. Despite my parents’ lack of enthusiasm, however, I always enjoyed seeing the over-the-top work my neighbors did a few days prior to October 31. Plastic arms, legs, and sometimes heads would stick out from the ground. Cobwebbed tombstones would litter the front yard. Cartoons of black cats and hags on broomsticks would hang from windowpanes. And every few years, two or three homes would feature huge inflatable haunted houses and bat globes on their roofs.

Children naturally enjoy this. They appreciate the glowing Jack-O-Lanterns, bat-shaped cookies, and ridiculous costumes. But everything should be kept that way, within strict confines of what is acceptable and unacceptable. Above all else, this is a child-friendly holiday, which takes place for the benefit of those youngsters who just can’t get enough candy. We should keep it that way: safe, classy, and friendly.

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