The prime reason to brave the dark and spooky streets on Halloween, decorated with cobwebs and skeletons and creepy crawly spiders, is to receive the quintessential holiday item: the pillowcase (or basket, if you’re an amateur) full of candy from sweet old ladies and annoyed middle aged couples. But being a high school student, the concept of trick-or-treating becomes muddled with complexities about age and whether its cute or slightly perverted to be roaming the streets at night as a teenager surrounded by hundreds of little kids. Although teenagers will try to throw fun Halloween parties or scary movie marathons, we all know that nothing ever really compares to the feeling of going to strangers’ doors at night, asking for food.So are we too old to trick-or-treat? Has this holiday tradition finally become obsolete, joining the caliber of Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny?

Junior Emma Lawson says we’re never too old to trick-or-treat. “Just because it’s seen as an event for small children doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it,” she says. “It’s literally walking around and getting free candy. I haven’t done it in a few years but you can bet your butt I’ll get back into it.”

Junior Ethan Roman doesn’t quite agree. “Yeah, uh, the whole concept is fun, but not when you get past age eight,” he said. “It’s cold and you feel bad for taking away candy that could go to little kids. Besides, there’s way more fun stuff to do instead and we have homework.”

Trick-or-treating is an annual event that is very controversial the older you get. On one hand, there’s nothing wrong with taking advantage of free candy for a night. We deserve it. Between our growth spurts and crazy energy a night full of running around stuffing ourselves on candy might be the perfect activity for high schoolers. On the other hand, it’s clearly an event for smaller children and getting all those weird looks from parents can be depressing after a while.

Halloween is a holiday marked by spooky scares and sticky sweets. To take trick-or-treating away from the demographic who needs it most would be a cardinal sin.