Carving pumpkins, trick or treating and dressing up to attend school are all things that almost all children do for Halloween and very few adults ever do.
The only time one ever sees an adult carving a pumpkin is when they are helping one of their children in an effort to prevent a child from losing a finger, so they really aren’t doing it for themselves.
The same thing goes for trick-or-treating, since one shouldn’t send a 4-year-old out alone knocking on doors the adult simply goes to accompany them and doesn’t usually demand candy themselves. When you grow up, you can still celebrate holidays but they do not represent the same joyous experience that they did when you were younger.
Adults do participate in Halloween festivities, but more so as an excuse to party and to dress in a skimpy way that is not socially acceptable. Dressing this way doesnt’t have anything to do with the holiday itself.
When people first started celebrating Halloween it wasn’t because they wanted an excuse to dress up as a naughty police officer.
The roots of Halloween are based on a Celtic tradition of honoring the dead. Later it was turned into a religious holiday where Celts would feed the needy who traveled door to door; hence a reason why children now do the same instead they “beg” for candy. Obviously the holiday has not always been aimed at children, but it also has not always been celebrated as it does today, due to changing times and a need to modernize it.
The fact of the matter is that Halloween, and almost any holiday, is celebrated and made into a big deal because children enjoy it and have fun with it. Teenagers and adults can also end up having fun, but all of the arts and crafts projects, costume parades and decorations are put up with the kids in mind.
Go into any major store such as Party City or Target and you will see aisles dedicated to bags of candy to be handed out to children and racks of costumes for toddlers and elementary aged kids.
The market is growing for these adults and young women due to the fact that many see it as a chance to wear skimpy outfits and not get judged. On the other hand, it is not growing as fast as people assume. Halloween is not becoming an “adults only” holiday; in fact, it’s more of a family holiday centering around the children.