By Judith Kristen, AAP Columnist
That time is upon us once again… the time of ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night. Halloween is a happy holiday fest full of chills and thrills for kids of all ages!
The “holiday,” in fact, harkens back quite a bit to the Middle Ages and All Souls’ Day, when the poor people of Great Britain would beg for soul cakes, a sweet bread treat, and then pray for dead relatives and long lost friends in return. We were just a bit slow to take to Halloweening here in America. Trick-or-treating really didn’t become popular in the United States until the 1800s. Those children of days gone by played impish pranks first, and then asked for candy. It’s a wonder they even got candy after that, but, then again, it was the 1800s. But, by the time I was trick or treating in the 1950s, the spotlight had switched to good old family fun: Happy Halloween parties; fabulously fun costumes; an occasional apple taffy; plenty of hard candy treats; and lots of chocolate. Actually, chocolate makes up about three-quarters of a trick-or-treater’s loot, according to the National Confectioners Association. And in the event that the spoils aren’t scarfed down whole hog, milk chocolate is still good and yummy for about 10 months, while the darker variety lasts up to two years!
Speaking of chocolate, a Halloween fact for me personally that’s scarier than a Freddy Kruger mask is that the full size five-cent Hershey bars neighbors would give to me and my friends when we were kids, are now $1.49 each!
But, amid all the fun, fright, and candy, I also enjoyed the funny Halloween jokes we would tell each other at school. Those cute Halloween one liners and knock knock jokes. I was good at them and remember a few of them still.
Why don’t mummies take vacations? They’re afraid they’ll relax and unwind.
What happens when a ghost gets lost in the fog? He is mist.
Who won the skeleton beauty contest? No body.
And here’s one I will never forget. A boy in my friend’s fourth grade class was totally brilliant, extremely nerdy, and always soft spoken, so when he said something, I made it a point to listen because I knew it would be good stuff. And so, here it is reprinted for you 58 years later. Daniel Allen Stewart’s favorite Halloween joke: What do you get when you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter? Pumpkin Pi. It still makes me laugh.
So, on this All Hallow’s Eve, have fun, be a kid again, and enjoy the ride, with or without a broom.
Peace and love… and BIG Hershey bars!
~Judy… Or is it a Ghostwriter?
Judith Kristen recounts her obsession for the Beatles and her not-so-chance meeting with George Harrison in her best-selling book, “A Date With A Beatle.” For more information on Judith and her published work, visit JudithKristen.com.
