Blue Devils reminisce childhoods on Halloween

By Paige Ochoa,
BlueDevilHUB.com Staff–

According to Thebalance.com, an estimated 175 million Americans will celebrate Halloween this year and, in total, will spend an estimated 9 million dollars on the holiday as well.

Although Oct. 31 used to mean dressing up in costume and running around the neighborhood collecting candy, nowadays for Davis High students, Halloween has a different meaning – homework and staying focused on their studies for the week.

“When I was younger I celebrated with a birthday dinner with my mom, then trick or treating with friends,” junior Gaby Tad-y said. “Now I spend time with my friends on Halloweekend, and then birthday dinner with my mom on Halloween so I also have time for schoolwork, since we unfortunately don’t get Halloween off.”

For Tad-y, Halloween is even more than just candy and pumpkins as it is also her birthday.

“I love it because it’s like two special days in one,” Tad-y said.

“My favorite part of Halloween used to be the free candy but now it’s more of the dressing up with your friends,” Tad-y said. “Thrift stores have such great finds!”

Juniors Nathan Jewell and Britney Vitangcol have also already devised a plan for how they will spend their Halloween this year.

Both in favor of making their own costumes, Jewell and Vitangcol have decided to coordinate their costumes as a couple – Jewell as a gorilla and Vitangcol as a banana.

“I think we’ll end up dressing up in our really cool costumes and then chill at one of our houses to hand out candy,” Jewell said.

Although both are excited for Oct. 31, it will not have the same effect as it did in past years due to their age, in both a positive and negative way.

“Personally, I’ve never been a huge fan of Halloween because I always got scared when I was little,” Vitangcol said. “But now, I think it’s kinda fun getting scared, but not all the time, just during spooky season.”

As for Jewell, the excitement of Halloween has greatly decreased since he was a younger trick-or-treater.

“Honestly, Halloween is not as fun as it used to be because if you go trick-or-treating you get judged because you’re an old teenager, but when you’re a kid they think you’re all cute,” Jewell said.

Junior Ty Soderquist agrees with Jewell at the fact that his feelings toward Halloween have changed; however, he still finds the holiday enjoyable, just in a different way.

“I’ve always liked Halloween since I was a kid,” Soderquist said. “I used to go trick-or-treating every year and that was something I really looked forward to.”

Soderquist’s fondest memory of Halloween was trick-or-treating with his friend, fellow junior Andrew Montano, when they dressed up in morphsuits to scour the neighborhood for their favorite candies.

However, no matter how old he gets, every year Soderquist has one Halloween tradition he will never sway from.

“I always buy a bunch of candy corn and eat it all,” Soderquist said. “Honestly, candy corn might seriously be the best part of Halloween.”

Senior Ellery McIsaac agrees with Soderquist’s opinion that Halloween food is one of the biggest highlights of Halloween.

“Halloween food is so fire, like of course Thanksgiving really lets you feast but let’s talk about all that candy for a hot minute. It’s just too good,” McIsaac said.

In addition to the candy, McIsaac has always loved the dressing up aspect of Halloween as well.
“Dressing up never gets old and I’ve been doing it since I was a kid,” McIsaac said.

When McIsaac was a third grader, she decided to dress up as a pumpkin. Due to her lack of materials, the end product was much different than what she had originally imagined.

After cutting arm and leg holes in a pumpkin trash/leaf bag, she stuffed it with newspapers making her costume about “two yards in diameter,” McIsaac said. She then topped it off with a fuzzy orange hat.

“Thickest human pumpkin y’all ever seen,” said McIsaac of her third grade Halloween costume. “It was pretty dope though, not gonna lie.”

This year however, McIsaac has a different idea on how she will spend her Halloween.

“My plan is to watch a bunch of horror movies around Halloween and tweak myself out,” McIsaac said. “But night of, it’s always tradition to go out with friends and have as much fun as possible.”