Thursday, November 1, 2007

A Kit Kat has 218 calories (thoughts on Halloween)

I’m a little nostalgic for the Halloweens of old. Gone are the days when my siblings and I trooped around in the Buffalo snowT before coming home to dump our candy on the family room floor, the better to search for the razor blades and syringes that might be hidden among our loot.

I am the one passing out the treats these days, not without a significant amount of guilt – I’ve seen too many diabetic and obese patients struggle with changing their eating habits to feel good entirely good about passing out candy to little kids. Still, one evening (or a few) of candy binging isn’t going to ruin anyone, and I’ve always liked the eerie, semi-pagan atmosphere of All Hallows Eve. It’s the Celtic in me.

My roommates and I got pretty into things this year: we carved three pumpkins[ – at the neighborhood coffee shop’s pumpkin party, no less – and roasted pumpkin seeds, then arranged our schedules so someone would be home for the neighborhood kids.

At the hospital during the day I’d bragged about how tough I was going to be: “No candy without a costume or without saying ‘Trick-or-treat,” I’d claimed. We – my fellow medical students and I, the nurses, the social workers – had complained about the many ways in which people violated Halloween these days. Teenagers who show up without costumes, whoever it is smashing pumpkins overnight, parents who insist on collecting candy for the baby who is “at home.” If your baby is at home, this chocolate is calorie-free. (And if baby really is at home, too young to be out trick-or-treating, what are you doing bringing home a pillowcase full of candy for him or her?)

In reality, I was less firm when the time came to light our jack-o-lanterns and pass out Kit Kats, Hershey bars, and Almond Joy (chosen because they were on sale and because we’d appreciate the leftovers).

I harassed a few people: every kid without so much as a bandanna or ski mask was asked, “And what’s your costume?” Inventive answers included “just a boy,” and “a kid skipping school – don’t tell my mother.”

“You have to say the magic words,” I told a group of five or six teenage boys who silently held their plastic bags out in anticipation. They obliged in a mumble. “I haven’t had to say that since I was like twelve,” one boy said. I rather thought this proved my point, I told my roommate Dari. If you’re too cool to say “trick or treat,” then you are too cool to be on my doorstep asking for candy.

I won’t pretend that kids who showed more effort got more candy (we had a light turnout, and my roommates and I have a collective sweet tooth that made keeping too many Kit Kat bars around a dangerous idea). It’s occurred to me that some of these kids might not be able to afford a great costume, or their parents might not have the time to spend on an elaborate homemade one. But there’s really no excuse for not saying “trick or treat.”

“Is she old enough for candy?” I asked one woman who was filling a bag for her child, sleeping behind her in a stroller. “She’s one,” the mother replied. One-year-olds really need those Almond Joys.

My yuppie self sat there, eating edamame and squash while snarking about childhood obesity, during the two hours which had been designated for trick-or-treating by Cleveland Heights. This irony was not lost on me, and I started thinking about ways to make Halloween more healthy for the neighborhood kids next year. Little raisin boxesX? Mini popcorn bags? We’d be that house, the one where you don't get anything good. Probably we’ll give out candy again. Halloween just isn’t the same without it.



T Actually, I only remember it snowing once, but nostalgia is all about exaggerating. I should note that we also walked uphill both ways while trick-or-treating.

[ It was suggested that we make our three pumpkins into a non-traditional family (two mommies + baby) until I pointed out that pumpkins were gender-neutral, which made them sort of radical decorations to begin with.

X Apparently when my parents took me trick-or-treating for the first time, I got a box of raisins at the first house and wanted nothing more than to go home and eat them. My confused parents forced their three-year-old daughter to go to a few more houses and collect candy before giving in. I then hated raisins for about twelve years.