Dressing up and going trick-or-treating has always been a tradition for me and my big sister. When I was very little my parents would pick my costume for me, so half of the time I was a princess or cheerleader or something super girly. When I got older and my parents would let me pick my own costume, I became sick of being something girly. I wanted to be a biker girl one year, and another year I was a baseball player. I believe that my guy cousins had an impact on me when I was that age because I spent most of my time hanging out with them. As my sister got older, she got to the point of her teenage years where it wasn't cool to hang out with her younger sister, so that's why I instead hung out with my guy cousins.

A few things changed in middle school. One was the tradition of going to haunted houses. I still remember getting so scared that I would end up crying and running out of the haunted house. Another thing that changed was that I got to the point where I couldn't hang out with guys anymore because I was a teenager now, and that's when girls my age were getting boyfriends. So at that age I knew that if I wanted a guy to like me I would have to dress up as something cute. By this time I was in upper middle school and I dressed up as a vampire one year and cheerleader the next. By this time we weren't really trick-or-treating; we were just getting together and having little sleepovers.

Then came my high school years where people started to not dress up because it was "lame". So for my high school Halloween years, I would sit at home with my family and watch Halloween movies with them and hand out candy to kids who were trick-or-treating. I honestly really enjoyed being able to give those kids that experience because I remember how excited I always was to meet new people and get candy from them.

Now that I am a freshman at Luther College, the story has changed. Many of my fellow classmates are dressing up and children will also come to our dorm rooms while we get to hand out candy to them. What makes handing out candy even better now than when I was in high school is the fact that now I get to dress up, too. When you are younger you don't realize how important Halloween is, but when you are an adult, most of the memories that you have and pictures that your parents have saved for years are of you on Halloween -- and let's not forget about the amazing candy that people would give out! As a kid you also don't notice how much it means to the person handing out the candy that you are coming to them and asking. I remember being a kid and being scared to go up to the door and ask for candy, but when I grew up I finally realized that the people who were giving away candy were just excited as the kid that was getting the candy.