Yes, out-of-town trick-or-treaters want what you have — for a night
Halloween unmasks us: There’s the retired volunteer from Washington, D.C., who took to Nextdoor to decry teen trick-or-treaters from “outside the Hill” who are “trying to take advantage of the freebies.”
Or the woman who doesn’t want you to get her wrong — she loves getting trickor-treaters — but she asked the cops to stand “at the gate with a list and only let in certain people” after too many kids from outside neighborhoods showed up at her gated community, she confessed on Reddit.
I’d hoped the pandemic had put a pause on Halloween hatred.
But the muscle memory is strong in affluent communities that have long lived in victimhood about overage trick-or-treaters and out-of-town kids hauled to places known for better candy, safer streets and cooler decorations.
I wrote about this nearly a decade ago, and I repost it every year — as soon as I hear folks begin dreading the onslaught.
I live on Capitol Hill in D.C., where East Capitol Street on Oct. 31 is the closest this town gets to Mardi Gras. Same thing happens in Georgetown.
And for folks who’ve lived in these places for years, it can get old. Sometimes, a house will give out more than 1,000 pieces of candy and still run out. The streets are full, mums get trampled, Tootsie Roll wrappers litter the tree boxes. All that is survivable. The ugly truth is this annual mayhem —- come on, it IS the devil’s night —is less tolerated because the outsiders are mostly low-income and people of color.
Almost 10 years later, I thought we’d be better than this, that we’d somehow evolve and the same neighborhoods sprouting “Black Lives Matter” and “Hate Has No Home Here” yard signs wouldn’t be electric with anxiety over the coming holiday.
But no. My community message list has already had the “out-of-state license plates” pearl-clutcher.
So let me remind all those folks again — it’s just candy. And if you can afford to live in these nice places that families long to wander for just one night, you can afford it. Even 50 bags of the good kind.
The kids aren’t there just for “freebies.” Even poor folks can afford to go to Target the day after Halloween and buy bags of fun-sizes at 50 percent off if that’s what it was all about.
No, they are there because it’s a magical night. Because they can knock on strangers’ doors and feel safe, Because they can enjoy the monster skeletons and spooktacular lightshows their neighbors can’t afford — or can’t bother — to put outside.
And, yes, it’s because they can probably get their hands on more candy — maybe even the full-size bars that legend says rich people give out — than Mom would ever let them have (but isn’t that universal?).
In same cases, it’s not even about income divides. Certain neighborhoods just do Halloween better, drawing folks from ho-hum suburbs because the McMansion community three hidden-oaks-fox-glens over is the place to be. Sorry, folks. Maybe it’s not the easiest night for all of you, but it’s just one night.
Let’s not forget that Halloween’s very roots have a rich-poor tension.
The Celtic poor, back around 1000 A.D., visited the homes of the one-percenters to collect their “soul cakes” on Halloween. This was their payment for prayers they’d launch heavenward in Mr. Moneybags’ honor. A little twist on buying indulgences.
Folklorist Jack Santino, who writes about the Celtic origins of Halloween, reminded me of the slightly sinister nature of the soul cake exchange.
“There is a veiled threat,” Santino said. “Halloween has always had the quality of danger and disruption to it.”
And all the attempts to curb or calm it — the gated community, the laws setting age limits on trick-or-treating — have a “class element” to them, he said.
And that brings me back to the teens. Sure, they may not even be in costume, they may barely croak “trick-or-treat,” but they’re doing it because it’s fun, because it reminds them of being little, because it’s better than 1,000 other things teens could be getting into that night. And thanks to the pandemic, every teen is officially two years younger, because they missed at least a couple of Halloweens, OK?
I know this well, and my teen and a big group of his friends will be out and in costume. I’ll translate their mumble for y’all: “Trick-or-treat!”
Petula Dvorak is a columnist for The Washington Post’s local team who writes about homeless shelters, gun control, high heels, high school choirs, the politics of parenting, jails, abortion clinics, mayors, modern families, strip clubs and gas prices, among other things. Before coming to The Post, she covered social issues, crime and courts.