As a kid I always loved Halloween. Any excuse to knock on strangers’ doors and ask for candy was OK with me. Dressing up in a costume seemed a small price to pay for high volumes of processed sugar.

My friends and I spent lunch and free time at school discussing our strategy for hitting up every house in the neighborhood. If they were giving out full size candy bars we hit them up twice. If they were giving out fruit they would be skipped, and immediately blacklisted. Like Pete Rose and baseball, these homes were never again to play the game of Halloween.

I came home from school on the holiday, probably already on a sugar buzz. Before going out trick or treating, we would sit down and have dinner as a family. I didn’t want to waste valuable intestinal real estate on actual food when there would be sugar, but for some reason my mother insisted.

It was dark. It was cold. But none of that mattered, because candy. It was time to go out and have fun and celebrate this strange day that simultaneously promoted evil, fear, and the power of a sugar buzz. I’d have to hand my candy stash over at home, so it could be inspected and output could be controlled.

As a parent, things are different now, in a lot of ways. I’ll still monitor my son’s candy output through the month of November, but more on that later. The stark contrast between my time and Jamie’s is in the trick or treating hours. At some point trick or treating became an afternoon pastime, instead of a celebration through the night.

I became vaguely aware of a societal shift when traffic to my door seemed to be heavier at 3 p.m. than 8. A quick scan of local trick or treating hours shows the majority of towns where I live starting at 3 or 4 p.m. Some start as early as 1 p.m. Some are done by 6, and they are all done by 8. Traffic seems to die off well before the back half of the window, and a majority of homeowners may not even be home on the front half.

My son is 2, so he typically goes to bed pretty early. To me, part of the mystique of the holiday is due to the dark. Maybe we start trick or treating with him in the daylight, but trick or treating at 3 p.m. seems a little sanitized for my taste. I don’t think being outside after the sun goes down one day out of the year will cause him to melt.

I do still believe in safety, and monitoring candy output. As much as it bothered me as a child, I see the importance as a parent. Not just to control the sugar high, but for the teaching opportunity. The lesson will be on taxes. He had some early lessons on this subject with Goldfish snacks, but it needs to be reinforced.

The lesson goes something like this:

When your income includes five fun size Snickers candy bars, you will need to give up at least two.

Do you like your home and your room? Do you like the structure of your day, and all the time you get to play with your toys? These come at a cost. Today it will be Snickers.

Tomorrow we will be talking about schools and roads and libraries, and the income will be in dollars. He may as well be ready.

See you out trick or treating.

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