Hilal Nakiboglu: Trick or treat, or charity?

I love Halloween for what it is: a holiday where candy corn is an essential and hoarding chocolate in sinful amounts is smiled upon with approval.

I love that whole generous spirit thing too. As a child, going door-to-door with parents and friends; skipping along in a little costume that bunches up inappropriately when you walk -- that mask you insisted on at the store weeks earlier, now in danger of cutting off circulation to your head.

Doorbell after doorbell, you ring, politely asking for saccharine donations from people that you largely ignore on other days of the year, like that strange family two doors down, whose pet doberman almost took your nose off last month. All that is temporarily forgotten. It has no place now, in a neighborhood where the "generous spirit" of the Halloween tradition reigns. On that magical night, it's all blushing bows in Little Red Riding Hood costumes and dainty curtseys as Cinderella.

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Halloween. I remember sifting hurriedly through my candy goldmine after bedtime. The absolute joy of finding that one Mars bar, buried beneath no-name lollypops, generic butterscotch or, worse yet, those "healthy" options of highly suspect "homemade granola treats." Feeling an odd sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, I chomped away on chocolate before anyone caught me, my teeth glued together by the caramel evidence.

Now, years later, with my trick-or-treat route shortened to one house, President Rodin's, I am left with free time to reflect on a childhood's worth of candied memories and to wonder about the origins of Halloween.

Curious, I turned recently to the TV network that gave us Return of the Spartans -- no, not the WB -- the History Channel, to find out more. According to them, the tradition of trick-or-treating dates back to an All Souls' Day parade in England.

On the day of this procession, the poor would beg for food. Families with something to spare offered up sweetcakes in return for a promise: that the unfortunate pray for the donating family's deceased relatives. This tradition of charity was called "going a-souling" and was soon adopted by children who would go door to door, being greeted with money, food and drink.

By the time the 20th century rolled around though, sadly, the American tradition of Halloween-giving was largely lost. It had been unceremoniously replaced by a new secular custom whose only clear purpose seemed to center on children consuming mass quantities of candy.

Today, estimates put the annual amount spent nationally on Halloween at a staggering $6.9 billion. This translates into the second largest commercial holiday for us. It also translates into a whole lot of calories.

Ignorance really is bliss, I suppose because knowing this makes it harder for me to love to Halloween for what it is: a tribute to refined carbs. Now, I find myself wondering why it isn't what it was before. Why has it turned into this selfish, gastronomic national sugar rush? Why Halloween's disassociation from its noble origins of giving to those in need?

Recently, U.S. News and World Report ran a cover story on the fattening of America. The piece, predictably, spent much time explaining the gravity of childhood obesity in this country. The numbers were gloomy and indicative of a continuing, regrettable trend, with 58 percent of the nation's kids being dangerously fat.

Given the wholesome origins of the holiday and its not-so-wholesome transformation into a fatty feast, a rediscovery and revival of original Halloween customs seems sensible to me.

We appear to be wasting an unforgivable amount of money on candy and plastic decorations. Dedicating even a portion of what we spend on chocolates to a more lasting cause would make sense.

With the Metropolitan AIDS Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance a very active presence on campus and October being National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, perhaps you personally can consider forgoing that extra bag of Tootsie Rolls for your roommates and fork over a few dollars to charity. While temporary fun, nobody -- neither you nor any neighborhood children -- needs that much candy. There are better ways to be generous.

I certainly can appreciate the joy Halloween brings in its modern form. Happily, I will be pulling together some sort of last minute costume on the 31st and decorating with my floor in Hill College House. But I will also be mindful of how this all got started. My hope is that you will be too.

Hilal Nakiboglu is a second-year doctoral student in Higher Education Management from Ankara, Turkey.

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