There are only two real seasons in America — the 61 days from the end of October to New Years Day and one for the rest of the year.
It starts with Halloween which, through the years and with the power of marketing, has become an undeclared national holiday. The National Retail Federation estimates we will spend about $11.6 billion on food, candy and costumes for next week’s Halloween day festivities.
Who would have thought the cute little tutus for our cats and funny hats for our dogs would become so expensive?
This coming Saturday, Oct. 26, Park Forest will hold a safe Halloween program from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the downtown area. Food trucks will offer their wares for the moppets, emergency vehicles from the village will be on display and a $5 entry fee for a scavenger hunt will benefit the programs for the local Healing Steps Counseling, a service geared for adults with special needs.
A safe and sane afternoon of Halloweening on Saturday will not delay their progress the following Thursday when the by-then sugar-crazed moppets will knock on doors, ring doorbells and utter the magic password, “trick or treat.”
We usually supply them with Snickers. It is Madame’s favorite. The Brits and Scots like to dip them in batter before deep frying them in suet. One of my friends says we gave them guns and bullets in World War II, and they responded with a “heart attack in a bun.”
Bon appetit
Candy, however, creates other problems.
In 2023, we spent nearly $49 billion on candy, with some $3.6 billion or about 600 million pounds just for Halloween. Outside of an adverse effect of gobbling up too many sweets, there is an environmental problem they create.
Those candy wrappers are small, sometimes sticky, subject to contamination, difficult to recycle and can easily escape the waste stream and often end up in a landfill or the ocean. The village, which often takes pride in being an environmentally strong community, has installed three candy wrapper recycling boxes.
That is just the beginning. Along with the never-ending mattress sales, some of us will be overwhelmed by “special” dates such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Super Saturday and all the other events geared to make us both happier (hopefully) and poorer.
During this holiday season, some of us will eat well. Some of us will drink heartily. Some of us will toast the season with family and friends.
Some of us will go hungry.
While we dust off our costumes, trick up the front yard and worry that our children may overindulge on sweets, some of us in this bountiful country will go to bed on Halloween night and the other feast days with little or nothing to eat.
The last time we checked, the U.S. Department of Agriculture claims 47.4 million people in this country cannot get sufficient food, or food of an adequate quality to meet one’s basic needs, and 4% of Illinois homes welcome hunger as an unwanted guest.
There are ways each of us can help.
Most Thursday mornings, we take part in a free food pop-up at the First Baptist Church in Park Forest sponsored by the Illinois Partners in Hope and the Southland Voice. The assortment of food varies from week to week and may include snacks, baby food, an assortment of beverages and, depending on the supply, dairy products and frozen fare.
We can do more. When family and friends join us for holiday meals, we often tally our food costs, divide that sum by the number of people at our table. That portion, either in money or food stuffs, is donated to a food bank, a township pantry or any organization that helps feed others.
Happy Halloween.
Jerry Shnay, at Jerryshnay@gmail.com, is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.
