The ways people celebrate the holidays change and evolve as they change. Students discuss their plans for Halloween this year and how these plans have changed from years past.

While some participate in extravagant traditions and some just relax at home, there are many ways to celebrate. Sophomore Lilly Gibson discusses her family’s Halloween traditions.

“Every Halloween, I go to Wichita to stay with my mom. We go to Cowtown, where we take my little siblings to go trick or treating,” Gibson said. “Also, there’s a haunted walkway and they serve apple cider and hot chocolate.”

Junior Lilly Rugenstein plans to do similar activities this year, but here in Shawnee.

“I’m going to my friend’s neighborhood and we’re going to walk around with all of her little siblings as they go trick or treating and sort of babysit them,” Rugenstein said.

“It used to be that every Halloween my dad’s side of the family and my mom’s side of the family and my step-parents, we would all meet for Halloween,” Gibson said. “We would go to this really small town called Leon and we would trick or treat there through this small town.”

Sophomore Prachi Kalirai thinks that This change in traditions can be sad, especially when it comes to aging out of certain activities.

“Once you hit your adult years, I feel like a lot of people won’t let you trick or treat,” Kalirai said. “I feel like that’s the same thing for teenagers and I don’t really like that because it’s fun.”

Rugenstein agreed about the sentiment of being too old to trick or treat.

“Usually I go trick or treating I love trick or treating but it’s a little awkward being almost 17 [years old] and knocking on people’s doors for candy,” Rugenstein said.

Aging isn’t the only thing that can affect how students celebrate the holiday, changes to family structures can also cause shifts in celebrations.

“How I’ve grown up has affected how I celebrate it just because of moving pretty far away from my mom. It’s made it difficult to do the same thing as I used to do with her,” Gibson said.

Furthermore, schools have changed their views on Halloween, actively encouraging students not to wear costumes as opposed to the parties had in elementary school.

“​​We used to have actual School held Halloween parties and those were always tons of fun,” Rugenstein said. “We’d have a parade for each of the grades and we’d go through the school. ”

Overall, Rugenstein likes the holiday for its good memories.

“I really like Halloween,” Rugenstein said. “It brings a lot of good memories for me. It was always so much fun to go out and run around my neighborhood, see all my neighbors, see all the fun costumes. I’ve never had a bad Halloween before and so it’s just a good time.”