By Chris Cosci

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. It's a day to make your mouth water, your stomach grow, and your sugar level skyrocket. I can't think of anything that defines childhood more than the quest for candy - and lots of it.

Growing up, everyone had their favorites. Snickers. Skittles. Candy Corn. For a kid, this was as well-rounded a diet as one could ask for. As the years went by, kids began to scout out the neighborhood in search of the houses that gave out the good stuff. We'd find out who was giving out the full-size chocolate bars and not just little bags filled with pennies.

Yet, as wonderful as the candy is, there's more to Halloween than setting up a lifetime of trips to the dentist. Halloween is also a day that's meant to tingle the spine, raise the hair, and chill the body. Halloween is about nighttime. It's about embracing the darkness and being thrilled by the creatures of the night. It's at night when the vampires come out, the werewolves start to transform, and the zombies come out of their graves.

And it's at night that I remember roaming the streets in my costume, going door to door, yelling "Trick or Treat!" However, in the past few years, a trend has emerged. Parents have become so concerned with the safety of their children, that most children don't even go out at night. Instead, parents wait until their children are out of school, then they walk around the neighborhood with them in the afternoon, before it gets dark.

If you ask me, this completely contradicts the spirit of Halloween. There have always been safety concerns with Halloween. I remember frequently watching videos back in school that talked about some of the safety issues. They taught us always to use the buddy system and to never go roaming the neighborhood alone. They cautioned us to inspect our candy and look for open wrappers before eating anything. And there was always the extremely valuable lesson learned through one of our language's major flaws: flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.

So while our major concern growing up was that our costumes could conceivably burst into flames, parents have developed new concerns. Concerns that are keeping our nation's children from truly experiencing Halloween. Going from door to door as a ghost in broad daylight just doesn't cut it.

There have always been some things about Halloween that I could do without. For example, bobbing for apples. I have never quite understood the attraction to this tradition. A bunch of children all sticking their heads, with open mouths, into a vat of water, trying to pick up apples with their teeth. Besides the unpleasant thought of sticking your head in germ-ridden, saliva-filled water, what consolation is it to be rewarded with an apple filled with teeth marks made by other less-successful participants?

But, I digress. To get back to my point, there are some things about Halloween that I could do without. Celebrating after the sun goes down is not one of them. Halloween is like a haunted house. When it's dark outside, it's creepier, scarier, and more thrilling. It's also a lot more fun. And that's the way Halloween should be.