Byalick: How the grown-ups stole Halloween

Marcia Byalick lives in Searingtown.

Boo, humbug!

It's just about the only holiday on the calendar that's not about someone or something else. It's not patriotic or political. You don't need a sweetheart, like you do for Valentine's Day, or a specific ethnic heritage like St. Patrick's Day, or a religious commitment like Yom Kippur or Easter.

While Halloween began as a pagan rite marking the onset of the long, dark North European winter, our imagination and creativity turned Oct. 31 into a celebration of ridiculously cute pirates, ghosts, queens, ballerinas and spaceships.

And I hate it.

I started feeling negatively about Halloween when my kids got old enough to realize how lame their witch costumes made of garbage bags really were. We lived in a neighborhood of mothers who all seemed to have graduated from art school, and my daughter's friends walked around bedecked in professionally sewn, knitted, crocheted, painted and decoupaged disguises.

But at least they were walking. And they were original. Nowadays, the cars idle in front of my house as mothers wait for their pint-size over-the-counter Darth Vaders, Harry Potters and Jack Sparrows to return safely from their 5-foot trek up my walk.

When any kid over 10 rings my bell, I check for their stash of toilet paper, soap and raw eggs in case my candy selection disappoints them. I peer out of my bedroom window till I go to sleep, sure that any holiday based on extortion will lead to no good.

Celebrating the darker side of human nature is heralded for weeks, leading to the coining of a new word, "Falloween." The Consumer Trends Institute uses the term to describe how the simple decorations we once put up for a single night of trick-or-treating have expanded to front porches and yards loaded with bales of hay and garlands of golden leaves from Labor Day through Thanksgiving.

Almost a quarter of the candy sold annually is for Halloween night. This year, according to a survey conducted on behalf of the National Retail Federation trade group, Halloween spending is projected to be about $6.8 billion, with about a billion of that on costumes. The survey also found that three-quarters of adults will celebrate this once-quiet October night in some way. Eleven percent will dress up their pets.

I happen to be a big fan of dressing up and eating candy and enjoying meaningless fun, but there's something troubling about how we've altered this holiday. A once innocent night of excitement for children is now run by and for adults. Risqué, raucous and gruesome getups have replaced the ghosts and goblins of old. Formerly staid office cubicles are decorated with orange and black streamers. Otherwise rational young women use the night as an excuse to look dangerously provocative. And, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Halloween night has one of the highest proportions of alcohol-related traffic deaths -- 44 percent -- ahead of both Christmas night (38 percent) and New Year's Eve (41 percent).

What does it say about us that we've usurped our kids' holiday?

What does it say about what we fear and what we find thrilling? What does it mean when the party store in my neighborhood sells Dogzilla dinosaur costumes for golden retrievers?

It just might be that in our stressed-out world, being a grown-up is highly overrated. Giving ourselves permission to act outside our normal personas for a night allows our shoulders to drop away from our ears. We grab the opportunity to be inventive, to step back in childhood or to act out our inner Lady Gaga and Charlie Sheen. What real harm is there in stealing the spotlight for a few hours, gathering with friends, and gorging on too much chocolate?

None at all if we leave the sexy, boozy excuse for grown-up ill behavior behind, and return to a safe, silly, sensible Halloween.