Here in Canada Halloween was one of the primary children's days, an evening when, as soon as you were older than six and not older than twelve, you could pick you own costume and get really scary looking (with a little help) and go out in the dark on your own (with friends) and rampage around in a mostly harmless fashion- and get a dozen pounds of candy to eat through the fall to boot. Now your parents wrap you in shrink wrap to keep the germs off and take you around under close supervision and so the fun has mostly been sucked out of it.