Childhood

Five-year-old Kyra Moore said this year’s Halloween costume is her favorite yet.

“I think this one — a ballet costume with wings — is my favorite,” Kyra said. “Because it’s fancy.”

Although Kyra said she likes getting to dress up, it isn’t the main reason she enjoys the holiday. Like many kids her age, she has one main objective Halloween night.

“I can’t wait to go trick-or-treating tomorrow,” Kyra said. “I mostly like getting the candy.”

Kyra said each year she, her brother, 3-year-old Micah, and her parents, East Lansing residents Kristi and Matt Moore, go door-to-door.

Nine-year-old Katie Sloan said she enjoys being able to dress up as someone else for a night. This year she is taking the opportunity to express her love of a certain animal with her costume.

“I really like horses, and sometimes farmers have horses,” Katie said. “So I decided to be a cowgirl.”

Katie said she enjoys going door-to-door and hanging out with her friends during the night’s festivities.

“Sometimes me and my friends decided to be the same things, so we trick-or-treat together,” Katie said.

This year, Katie and her friends decided not to coordinate, but she said she still is excited for Sunday.

“(I like) being with my friends and seeing the different people,” she said.
Although the copious amounts of candy handed out to kids might be their favorite part of Halloween, Kyra enjoys spending the night trick-or-treating with her brother.

“I don’t wanna go by myself,” Kyra said. “I would rather be there with my brother.”

Micah agrees with his older sister.

“I would rather be there with (Kyra),” he said.

Adolescence

Eric De Witt said Halloween used to mean spending hours walking through neighborhoods, dressed up in a costume for the goal of collecting candy.

But the East Lansing High School sophomore said the holiday has changed from elementary school, where Halloween-themed events were integrated into class, to barely being acknowledged in high school.

“A couple teachers will give you candy, but there’s not really any school activities,” De Witt said.

De Witt, who has had friends over to watch horror movies for the past couple of years, said the costume aspect of Halloween has diminished into a focus on socializing.

“I know a lot of high school students who trick-or-treat,” De Witt said. “If you’re not in a costume, (people) don’t like that.”

De Witt said he won’t spend a huge amount of time looking for a costume, but he and his friends occasionally will wear masks and visit area neighborhoods to hanging out, rather than receive candy.

Unlike De Witt, East Lansing High School sophomore Ally Murray said something changed during freshman year of high school when she began feeling too old to participate in Halloween festivities.

“It’s fun for little kids, but right now, it’s an awkward phase because you don’t feel like you should go trick-or-treating,” Murray said. “At the same time, you don’t really know how to celebrate it.”

Murray said she imagines she will attend Halloween parties in college, but trick-or-treating is an era that has passed for her.

“I used to love to do it, but now I just feel too old,” she said.

College years

For Parks Payton, Halloween is a chance to dream of the most outrageous costume and make it a reality.

Last year, the music education sophomore spent about $50 and more than four hours painting his body with a bright blue latex wall paint to become the genie from “Aladdin.”

“I primarily get (inspiration) from movies or famous people,” Payton said. “I try to think of the most ridiculous people.”

This Halloween weekend, Payton will impersonate David Bowie from the 1986 movie “Labyrinth,” which means learning all of Bowie’s songs from the movie. But Payton said he reduced his budget and went to the Salvation Army to find a frilly white shirt, a blond wig and tall black boots for his outfit.

“(Halloween is) an excuse for MSU to just be drunk the whole time, which is not what it was in high school,” he said. “It is a weekend, four-day party.”

As a child, Payton said the point of Halloween was trick-or-treating and winning the competition of who could get the most candy among his siblings. Payton said he and his brother and sister would spend more than an hour emptying their bags on the dining room table, where shrewd candy trading ensued.

“I miss that,” he said. “I wish I could still trick-or-treat.”

However, Payton, who lives in a West Circle residence hall, said he loved the chance to hand out candy to families and children trick-or-treating on Wednesday.

Lori Strom, MSU Family Resource Center coordinator, said the opportunity benefits both the students and the families who are trick-or-treating.

“This was a tradition that was started with the Service Learning Center as a way for students to reach out to the community,” she said. “It’s just something that has grown over the years.”

Payton said one of the biggest changes in the Halloween experience during college is the expectation of having an original costume for each night of the Halloween weekend.

“I can only paint my body so many times,” Payton said. “I am one costume every night. Who cares if people have seen it before?”

Despite Payton’s enthusiasm for the holiday, chemical engineering freshman Audrey Mabiza said she has never celebrated Halloween before. Mabiza is an international student from Harare, Zimbabwe, and all of her knowledge of the holiday is derived from what she has seen on TV.

“I know it’s mostly associated with dressing up and I know it has something to do with the saints,” Mabiza said. “It’s lost its meaning because of the commercialization of it.”

Parenthood

Dawn Pickett was thrilled that her daughter, 4-year-old Gabrielle, decided to be a princess for Halloween this year.

In addition to her daughter, Pickett also has two sons, 8-year-old Grant and 6-year-old William. Pickett, a history and international relations senior, said she was excited to go out and prepare a costume for a little girl for once.

“I was so happy when she chose to be a princess — I was ready to see some pink,” Pickett said. “I have two boys, so I went all out and bought everything.”

Pickett said watching her kids pick out what costume to wear each year is one of the most interesting parts of being a parent on Halloween.

“I like seeing them pick out who they want to be because it shows where they are in their development,” Pickett said. “It’s cool to see what they morph into and what they become.”

As a student and a parent, Pickett said the holidays are a good time to remember family comes before her studies.

“The holidays remind me that I’m a mom first and I guess sometimes I forget that because I’m in school,” she said. “It’s hard to miss a night but it’s important that you do.”

Pickett said it reminds her that separating her life as a student and a mom is her number one priority. She said her status as a mother always should get first priority on holidays, which is why she and her husband always take the night off for special occasions.

“It’s a break from our stressful life where we take a break and focus on family,” she said.

Although Pickett said she enjoys the present Halloween festivities, one thing the holiday makes her think of is the day her kids will be old enough to not want to dress up.

“I don’t look forward to when they don’t want to go anymore because Halloween is such a kid thing, so when they don’t want to go you know they’ve turned a corner,” Pickett said.

“As long as they want to trick or treat, I know they’re still my babies.”