When I was a kid, Halloween was a fun holiday rather than a scary one. The ghosts were cute ghosts, any pranks played were harmless, and there was always a wonderful sound of children laughing. However, it doesn’t seem to be that way anymore. Some of the costumes are so scary that they scare my little kids, and I have had several groups of teenagers play jokes on me that took days to clean up. But I have not given up on the holiday. I still think it’s a great way to enter a fantasy world, and I love going to Halloween Forums and reading the jokes and costume ideas that people post there. In fact, maybe the scariness of it all is a good thing. It helps kids to talk about their fears and realize that some things aren’t as bad as they seem.