Oh what a miserable thread. Everything is an excuse to sell a load of tat - Halloween, Christmas, New Year, birthdays, royal jubilees, Easter, weddings, christenings. We should not have any holidays at all. This will keep evil capitalists at bay! Lets prohibit the Christmas trees like the communists did in the early USSR (before bringing it back a few years later when they realised how dreary a looong northern winter is without some fun).
I love Halloween. It's an ancient festival, celebrating the change in the seasons. I especially like it for reminding us, in our urban industrial societies, that we are still a part of nature and that it is wonderful to lift your head from the keyboard once in a while and notice that the sun is more than half-way through to its darkest days, that the harvest is in, that the leaves are turning gold, that the year is almost complete. And yes, let's celebrate the spirits, the dead, the ancestors, lets have a carnival before the November darkness envelops us.
I love trick-or-treaters at my door, toddler, child, teenage, adult, whatever. Every year I am ready with my carved pumpkin and a huge bag of sweets. And every year I am disappointed that only a few knocks come to my door. This year, I have a toddler, I am making him a costume and we are going out. And we are buying sweets and nuts and giving them out to whoever comes to our door. And we are having pumpkin soup and pie and all that!