The Decline of Halloween?

Is it just me? Or does it seem like the whole essence of Halloween has been diminishing over the past couple of years? It just doesn't seem to be as big of a deal anymore. Not like when I was a kid.

Back in September, C and I were really excited for Halloween. I even made this post showing my excitement. You see, Halloween is C's most favourite holiday and we were planning on going all out this year with some amazing costumes. That was until his boss had to step in and ruin everything for us. C booked off the weekend about 3 weeks and only last week he was told that it was not possible for him to have the time off. To make things worse, out of the 3 possible shifts on Saturday, his boss put him on to work until close. So, due to his boss, any possible Halloween plans for us were thrown out the door. I carved my pumpkins and brought them to my parents house where I hung out for the night in hopes of seeing many cool costumes on the kids that came by.

But here's the kicker! My parents live in a pretty large subdivision and they only had maybe 30 trick-or-treaters! Upon speaking to everyone in my office, it was the same at their houses as well. My office is full of candy right now because there were no kids out trick-or-treating to get it! Where were all the kids?

In my first year in my house, I received over 100 kids. Last year, the numbers dropped drastically and I got maybe 30-40. And this year, even lower. What ever happened to kids making such a big deal about trick-or-treating? What are they doing instead? Are parents keeping them in for some reason? In attempt to protect them from something?

It's just such a shame that a holiday that seemed so BIG when I was a kid has diminished so much over the past few years. I can only hope that the holiday doesn't completely decline by the time I have kids!