I know it’s been a while since Halloween, but there’s something I simply must get off my chest: Seattle sucks at Halloween.

Sure, we’ve got our cool things, like the Greenwood Reaper, but for the most part, kids don’t get into Trick or Treating the way we did when we were kids.  Growing up, we owned the streets on Halloween.  It was chaos.  For one night, we didn’t have look both ways before crossing, and we just swarmed all over the place.  It was awesome.

Seattle, for a city so fiercely independent and which largely turns it’s nose up to malls and shopping centers, inexplicably Trick or Treats primarily at stores the weekend before Halloween.  Since this year fell on a Saturday, we expected a pretty good turnout.  Nope.  Nuthin.  The kids Trick or Treated at the stores on Greenwood and disappeared by nightfall.  And, even while they were out at the stores, the parents all looked like their kids were on the verge of a wholesale kidnapping.   “Don’t speak to strangers!  Don’t let go of my hand!  Don’t breathe air you don’t recognize!”

Seriously.  Kids, unite.  Rise up.  Take Halloween back.  And come check out our totally awesome pumkins.