(Photo courtesy of: ABC27) “Trick or treating is a timeless tradition everyone should be a part of.”
Alison Parker
Connector Editor
Each year, hundreds of excited children roam the streets of our local neighborhoods to go trick-or-treating. As college students, we look back at our memories as trick-or-treaters with fondness and nostalgia. Getting excited to choose your Halloween costume and candy bucket before a quite literal night on the town was just as important to us as children as the Met Gala is to the Kardashians. As we’ve gotten older, however— Halloween seems to become less and less enchanting as the years go by. Sure, we have our classic horror movies to pass us by, but nothing quite compares to the magic of trick-or-treating. Most of us college students, at this point, have probably resorted to passing out candy or attending small dorm costume parties to fill the Halloween-less void in our hearts.
While there technically isn’t an age cut off for trick-or-treaters in the state of Massachusetts, many of us teens and young adults feel that society has ultimately deemed it strange to go out trick-or-treating past your tween years. Why can’t college students embark on their own trick-or-treating journeys without it being weird? Seriously, all it is is dressing up and receiving free candy. Who likes free food more than an in-debt college student? The answer is nobody. Nobody at all.
While most universities celebrate Halloween in some shape or form, trick-or-treating almost never seems to come up as a campus or residence hall wide event. This is surprising given that the group living setting of a dorm would make for an absolutely perfect unconventional night of trick-or-treating. I mean, all that trick-or-treating entails is knocking on someone’s door, uttering the slightly cringey statement “trick-or-treat,” and taking a piece or two of candy from whoever is at the other side of the door. Who says we can’t implement this in dorms and have our own university trick-or-treating? While I bet some festive students leave out a basket of candy at the foot of their door—It would be an exciting change to implement a dorm-wide trick-or-treating event. RA’s, take notes.
In some ways, it seems that trick-or-treating is the perfect fit for college students. When you are a child you lack total freedom, and when you are a teenager, you are too cool and angsty to be seen in an embarrassing costume going around for candy. However, as college students we can be unapologetically ourselves and find joy in treating ourselves with something as simple as a Reese’s cup. The only downside to trick-or-treating as a college student is how early some towns deem their trick-or-treating hours. In Lowell, trick-or-treating begins at 6pm and ends at 8pm. This is a slim two-hour window in which many students may still be in the classroom or at club/sports practice.
Trick-or-treating and Halloween in general should have no age restriction. Some of us stressed out college students may benefit from a carefree night of trick-or-treating and bringing back that childhood nostalgia. I mean, Halloween does seem to always fall upon fall semester midterms. So, if you are a college student that has been longing to experience what may be your last time trick-or-treating—I encourage you to do so. After all, who doesn’t love dressing up and eating candy? If you are a college student planning to trick-or-treat this year, please be respectful of families and children in your neighborhood. The innocence and joy of a child trick-or-treating is something that, as stressed-out adults, we can all appreciate.
