Halloween, once almost exclusively the domain of America’s children has coopted by all of who still enjoy a bit of make-believe. Halloween has become one of America’s favorite holidays, only bested in popularity by the three holidays that follow, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve. Halloween purportedly dates back to 16th Century Scotland where the “Eve of all Saints” was celebrated on the last night of October. The Scottish shortened the name to Allhallow-even. Today, Americans spend almost $9 billion on Halloween costumes, decorations, and candy. Well, un a normal year they would.






With almost all of the world social distancing and taking precautions to protect themselves and their families, Halloween 2020 will not be quite the festival it might have been otherwise. Perhaps the police are sharing a collective sigh of relief, as Halloween 2020 takes place on a Saturday and to add to the possible mayhem, on a full moon as well. Even childhood trick or treating is discouraged this year due to the pandemic. If you can’t bear the thought of not trick or treating with your children, the CDC suggests always handing out treats outdoors, if possible, and perhaps even setting up a station with individually bagged treats for neighborhood children to take. Because you might be collecting candy from a number of houses, parents should wipe any candy wrapper the kids will eat that night, with the rest being put in a well-ventilated area to allow any possible viruses to die off untouched overnight.











ECPs have embraced Halloween in recent years and we celebrate their creativity and teamwork. Last year, we collected (with permission) a number of the photos shared on Facebook pages by various optical shops and ECPs. The costumes were terrific and we are sharing some of those again today.
Win Optical Journal Frida Masks
For 2020, we want to reward those shops who go all out and dress up. We are running a small contest to offer our new Optical Journal Frida masks to the staff of whatever optical shop has the best costume this year* as well as an individual mask for the Best Male and Best Female Halloween costume for 2020. So be sure to send us your group or individual Halloween photos no later than November 10th here or via Facebook in a message on The Optical Journal page.

Enjoy and stay safe!
*limit 10 masks…all must be in costume in the winning photo