Candy. Skeletons. Pumpkins. When was the last time you have seen any of these Halloween exemplars? With the end of quarantine, it seems as if the spirit of Jack Skellington has disappeared along with our mask usage. As a senior who has one year left of childhood, I dressed up as a Na’vi from “Avatar” (in honor of the movie’s sequel releasing this December) and embarked on a journey with my jack-o-lantern bucket to rediscover this lost spirit; I trick-or-treated at three distinct locations, all known with different enthusiasm towards the holiday: downtown Willowglen, the Moreland Pumpkin Patch, and for old times sake, Milpitas.
Willowglen has been a Bay Area trick-or-treating hotspot for decades, according to CBS News; while it never occurred to me to travel that far away for some candy, I sure was glad I did. Most of the night’s activities revolved around Lincoln Avenue, where the short-stop shops and cozy restaurants embraced the holiday by furnishing their stores with makeshift decorations. Each store owner welcomed trick-or-treaters by stuffing buckets by the handful with candies of all sorts, some even giving tiny samples of their products like candles and plant seeds. As I prepared to leave, I could sense the street just starting to rile up as the social atmosphere set in place. While driving past the houses in the neighborhood, it surprised me to see each house completely blanketed with Halloween decorations with a unique theme or pop cultural inspiration including “Star Wars”, “Despicable Me,” and “Stranger Things.”
Sadly, I could not stay for long since I needed to go to my next destination: the Moreland Pumpkin Patch. Although I am not a big fan of pumpkin patches, the wide variety of activities at Moreland certainly shifted my stance. Located to the west of Willowglen, the event held two main attractions for only $10: the kid-friendly Labyrinth and the terrifying Oubliette, which contained jumpscares unsuitable for the cowardly. Since I went with my younger brother, we chose the former, which truly lived up to its name as a maze with endless dead ends, trick-or-treating stops, and haunted houses for people of all ages to enjoy. At the end of the maze were the pumpkins, all in oblique shapes and sizes with different hues of husk green and orange. In every direction I looked, endless streams of pumpkins flow from mountains of even more pumpkins. I picked out a round one about the size of a small watermelon, called it a day at the patch, and returned home.
Entering the outskirts of Milpitas felt as if I was trespassing on a ghost town. Unlike the lively atmosphere of Willowglen, the houses here were not only dark and decoration-less, but there was also not a single trick-or-treater in sight. As I continued strolling past the empty houses, I felt as if I were in a Halloween horror film, with the street lamps flickering and the wind whispering into my ears. There came a few instances when a squirrel would scutter up the tree, causing my heart to skip a beat. A few minutes of fast-walking later, I came across a house with decorations, except they were mostly Christmas lights. The two inflatables–a ghost and a knocked-over headless horseman–were the only two Halloween-themed decorations. Delighted by their efforts, I took this rare occurrence to ring a doorbell and say the infamous three words one last time. “Trick-or-Treat!” A sweet old lady with a witch hat on answered and handed me my last Halloween sweet: a single Sweet Tarts; it was the best damn piece of candy I had all night.