Whither Hallowe'en?

Did I make this? You betcha.

I made it two years ago for William's 19th birthday although for some reason I haven't figured out, it seems to have only 18 candles.

His birthday comes up in November tucked neatly about half-way between Hallowe'en and Christmas. He'll be 21 which sounds like a milestone. It was always considered the age of majority – the age when a person stops being a "minor child." I'm not sure it has so much significance as it used to. Young people can vote when they're 18 and drink alcohol when they're 19. Those are about the only age limitations anyone considers nowadays.

But 21 still sounds significant so I'll do what I always do and ask him what special treat he'd like. I don't start thinking about the birthday until Hallowe'en is behind us – just as I don't start thinking about Christmas until the birthday has been celebrated.

And Hallowe'en. Where is it headed? I'm going to make a not-very-bold prediction: Within the next five years, Hallowe'en will be as big a deal as Christmas.

When I was a little kid, Hallowe'en meant dressing up in your father's old jacket and pants and hat and one of those face masks that you couldn't see out of and going out as a hobo. Or maybe making a little crown out of cardboard and foil and putting together some pretty clothing combinations and going as a princess. You might have a party at school and on the way home from school, some of the small stores would have what was called a "scramble." They would stand on the steps and throw handfuls of (wrapped) candy out on to the sidewalk and kids would "scramble" to pick up as much as they could.

In the evening, you'd go around to a few houses – only the ones where a jack-o'-lantern was displayed – and get some candy and that would be that.

I'm not saying this in the spirit of longing for the good old days. I'm just reporting the way it was.

I started to notice a few years ago that everything about Hallowe'en was getting more elaborate. One jack-o'-lantern wasn't enough. The increase was incremental but soon, many verandahs were displaying whole families of jacks, all with differently designed faces, all sizes and shapes. More and more decorations were showing up – not just ghosts in the trees but vampires on the roof and bloodied bodies in windows.

The Simpsons went from one Hallowe'en special a year to weeks of them. Martha Stewart (and I'm a Martha fan!) spends much of October ramping up the decorations and the partying. It used to be that a few parents would dress up in their own homes to receive their little trick-or-treaters but that would be about it. Now, many of the parents who are doing the rounds with their children are dressed in elaborate costumes, clearly costumes that have taken as much effort to put together as was used for the kids' costumes.

In the last couple of years, it's been sound and lights. More and more houses have scary sound effects reverberating around their houses and out their windows and more and more windows are surrounded by strings of orange lights – yes, like Christmas lights, only orange! In some windows, I've seen lit-up pumpkins and other light-decorations.

I'd say it's just about out of control and I doubt there's any way to stop it now.

What will be next? Hallowe'en card and gift exchange? Hallowe'en trees complete with special toys left for good children by an anthropomorphic pumpkin?

After a certain point, doesn't this sort of thing transition from fun to stress?

Hallowe'en: The Preview

These pictures are from last year, 2014. Every year is different so we'll see how this year measures up.

Not every year has five jack-o'-lanterns but the official carver-in-residence (Dan) must have been feeling particularly creative and ambitious last year. This is what the jacks looked like in the daylight:

William was not a conventionally artistically-inclined kid in school. His drawings (usually in pencil) were often detailed and enigmatic, with levels of great complexity and many incomprehensible things happening. The teachers never appreciated his drawings – there were no nice colours on them – but I used to at least try to figure them out.

If, however, the teacher gave him a piece of orange construction paper and told him to cut it into a circle and put a face on it, he was quite capable and co-operative. His pumpkins with faces are part of our Hallowe'en decor to this day. You can see them on the front door. It's not so easy to see the smiling witch but she's there. She's attached to those orange hands.

Speaking of smiling witches. . . I wear this hat in solidarity with witches, of course.

I don't really like Hallowe'en but I do it anyway. My late mother used to recall that I didn't like Hallowe'en as a small child either. She said I always objected to being made to get dressed in a costume. She said I gave her the impression that I felt it was unseemly to go to other people's houses, asking for candy. Years later, when I told this to a friend, he said, "I don't think I've ever known a five-year-old curmudgeon."

Who knows? Maybe I'd miss it if it weren't here.

This is what the jacks looked like after dark. They're real works of art, aren't they?