Halloween is just a few weeks away, and Dixie State College students are remembering their door-knocking, pillow-case carrying, cutesy rhyme-telling days of trick-or-treating.
Nathan Shapiro, a senior English major from St. Louis, said he was a hardcore trick-or-treater.
“I filled a whole pillowcase of candy by going to 300 houses,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro also admitted he broke some of the sacred laws of trick-or-treating.
“I was the guy who took the whole bowl of candy people left,” he said. “I didn’t believe in (taking) just one.”
Shapiro said he had a dresser with certain drawers dedicated to the organization of his booty. He also said he wasn’t fond of all the candy he received, like Red Hots and Boston Baked Beans.
Michelle Cracroft, a junior communication major from Salt Lake City, said she organized her candy as well.
“I’d always get home and separate it into categories of candy, and put it into baggies,” Cracroft said. “The stuff I didn’t really like lasted forever.”
Ashley Ponath, a senior English major from Duchesne, said her trick-or-treating experiences, for the most part, were uneventful, except for the time she discovered Pixy Stixs.
“I’d never had one before, and I was trying to eat it in the dark,” she said. “I kept opening [the wrapper] to try to find some candy, but there wasn’t any. When I opened the car door and the lights came on, it was all sitting in my lap. I was not a happy kid.”
Ponath said her Halloween adventures were cut short when her father made her stop participating in the holiday at age 12. But she found a way around her father’s edict.
“When I was 15, I volunteered to take my siblings trick-or-treating, so I’d be able to get candy and avoid getting caught by my dad,” she said.
Bredyn McCombs, a freshman computer science major from St. George, said he still trick-or-treats with his younger siblings, and he’s still getting candy he dislikes.
“I hate Whoppers,” he said. “If they had more chocolate, I would like them. The chocolate to-whatever-ratio-they-use to wafer is just too small.”
While some students look at Halloween fondly, other students see an absurdity in the holiday.
“I just think it’s strange that the holiday has metamorphosed into we’re giving kids a two-month supply of candy that they eat in four days,” said Garret Faylor, a senior English major from St. George.
Faylor said he wasn’t opposed to the holiday or trick-or-treating, but he thinks the concept is crazy.
“If I was a kid, I wouldn’t change it,” he said. “I wouldn’t be like, ‘Hey guys, don’t you think we should eat string cheese and apples instead?’”
Faylor said he would probably get more jazzed about the holiday as his own children grew old enough to trick-or-treat.
While the traditions surrounding Halloween might be strange when students stop to think about it, most celebrate it for the same reason as Ponath.
She said: “I just like the fact that you got a whole lot of candy!”
