So safe and sane, it's scary

Halloween. Hanging by a thread. Who's in charge here, anyway?

Arbor Day, Leif Ericson Day, even boring old "if you've eaten one turkey, you've eaten 'em all" Thanksgiving . . . those are holidays we could understand being put on the "do not resuscitate" list.

Instead, it's Halloween that's practically on life support. The one day intended to showcase everything that made America great — life, liberty and the pursuit of candy while wearing a Superman costume made out of Grandma's giant underpants — can no longer compete in a climate of financial woes, spiritual concerns and the insatiable need to worry about everything that could ever possibly go wrong. Ever.

Halloween will still take place on Oct. 31. But like air leaking from a giant inflatable pumpkin at a "safe" trick-or-treating event, the holiday's spontaneous, slightly mischievous sense of fun is gradually seeping out.

"To me, it's a real loss," said Carrie Baker, 45, an associate professor of sociology and anthropology at Berry College in Rome, Ga., and blogger for Msmagazine.com.

A shopping trip to a Halloween costume mega-store was depressing, the mother of two adolescent boys confirmed.

"I remember how much fun it was to run around in a homemade costume with a pillowcase that you tried to fill with candy," Baker said. "Sometimes you got spooked. But that was kind of the point."

No more. With so much real-life spookiness floating around out there now, Halloween probably doesn't stand a chance.

Submitted for your consideration:

The weak economy. Candy corn for the whole neighborhood doesn't cost peanuts, after all. Meanwhile, a trick-or-treating witch appearing at your front door isn't half as scary as some real guy showing up with a foreclosure notice.

The bogeyman syndrome. At least there's still trick-or-treating. Sort of. The original model strikes many people as being outdated and incredibly reckless — whaddaya mean it took place after dark, without adult supervision?!

Now, many parents insist on tagging along, even when their kids are knocking only on front doors they already know not to belong to pedophiles or purveyors of poisoned popcorn balls. Or they steer kids toward celebrations in carefully controlled group settings, like one of the many "Trunk or Treat" events popping up on church and municipal parking lots around the metro area of late.

"The world has changed in the last few years," said Ed Rivers, activities director at Johns Creek Baptist Church, where Wednesday's "Trunk or Treat" event from 6 to 7 p.m. will feature as many as 100 gaily decorated, pre-screened vehicles offering candy to kids whose parents have already gotten the "no scary costumes" memo. "It's a shame it's not as carefree as it used to be."

Uh, yeah. But is it any wonder, what with all the "helpful" facts and figures floating around out there?

Children between the ages of 5 and 14 "are four times more likely to be killed while walking on Halloween evening," according to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. Its Halloween safety tips include ways to ensure a jack-o'-lantern doesn't accidentally set your kid's costume on fire.

Discarded Halloween costumes inflict a level of environmental damage "[more] scary than the fake blood or the Freddy [Krueger] mask," says GreenHalloween. It all will add up to 12,000 tons of landfill waste this year, the environmental organization calculates. Among its solutions: Make your costume out of already existing trash.

That guy in the Shrek outfit may be after more than your Milky Ways, one woman in 2010 warned others on an Atlanta neighborhood listserv. Summoning the ghost of a past break-in at her house, she wrote,"We firmly believe our home was cased by kids trick or treating." Those opening their front doors on Oct. 31 could be offering masked marauders valuable advance peeks at the contents of their homes, she advised.

Wow. Remember when the only thing we had to worry about was razor blades inside of apples?

Most of us would be hard pressed to point to anyone that ever actually happened to — probably because no self-respecting kid would ever eat an apple on Halloween. Still, that pesky little fact didn't make the rumor any less ghoulishly delicious to pass around back in the day. It was as quintessential to Halloween as all those hours spent mapping out a route to the "best" houses or plotting to hide your candy stash from your parents and annoying little brother.

That it may never be that way again is among sociology professor Baker's biggest Halloween-related fears.

"With this prepackaging of Halloween and attempts to totally control it, you lose your creative license to make your own play," said Baker, who sees larger societal implications in our approach to the once-carefree holiday. "The experience of planning your own route, learning to overcome obstacles on the way to having fun — all that is lost."

Maybe not if Monica and Scott Gatlin have a say in the matter.

The Roswell, Ga., couple clearly had nothing but fun on their minds earlier this month when they stopped in the parking lot of Christ United Methodist Church.

Pumpkins for sale stretched as far as the eye could see, and the Gatlins couldn't resist plopping their 4 1/2-month-old son, Noah, down in the middle of them and spontaneously snapping a series of photos.

Come Halloween, Noah will be dressed as a dragon. Beyond that, plans are pretty fluid.

"We're going to sit on our front porch with Noah and hand out candy," Scott Gatlin said. "He might not know everything that's going on, but he'll have fun."

Luckily, that's kind of the point.