Halloween is one of my favorite holidays for two reasons: First of all I love horror movies and before Netflix and Amazon came along, there was always a marathon on some network leading up to the festivities of Oct.31. Also, I just love to hand out candy to children in their costumes.
I live in a pretty nice neighborhood in Los Angeles, but there aren't enough kids to come around for more than ten minutes, so it's great that children come from nearby locations to enjoy All Hallows Eve. All in all, it takes about an hour and a half of my time to fill up bags and pumpkin heads with treats. The smiles on the children knocking at my door is magical.
That's my take on Halloween, but here's another take from somebody living much better than most of America writing in to the Slate's "Dear Prudence" column:
I live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, but on one of the more “modest” streets—mostly doctors and lawyers and family business owners. (A few blocks away are billionaires, families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children.
Obviously this makes me feel like a terrible person, because what’s the big deal about making less fortunate kids happy on a holiday? But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services. Should Halloween be a neighborhood activity, or is it legitimately a free-for-all in which people hunt down the best candy grounds for their kids?
—Halloween for the 99 Percent
Emily Yoffe rightly chastises this idiot for being a Halloween Scrooge and a major league a-hole, but it says more about how the 1%ers feel about themselves these days. Their fee fees get hurt so easily that now even giving out twenty dollars worth of candy is just too much for them to take.
(h/t Hullabaloo)
