We all know Halloween is coming to Guilford College when the leaves start to change across campus, pumpkin-flavored food and drinks start appearing at coffee shops throughout Greensboro and the Campus Activities Board starts advertising for the haunted history tour.

However, most of us have been celebrating Halloween for much longer than we’ve been in college.

For many of us, Halloween came every year and brought a sense of adventure. We grew up exploring our neighborhoods in the dark with friends and talking to neighbors. As we got older, the adventures included haunted houses and horror movies.

For others, Halloween means family. A lot of us grew up carving pumpkins, trick-or-treating and dressing up with family members, whether we were too young to pick our costumes and had to rely on parental figures or we wanted to dress up like siblings.

Whether it was homemade Chex Mix or cupcakes, Halloween almost always involved food. Some of us ate more candy in one night than we were allowed to eat all year or traded it back and forth with friends.

Lastly, there are several of us on the editorial board who are not from the United States or have family outside the United States, where Halloween is not celebrated or is celebrated differently. There are several Guilfordians who did not experience their first Halloween until Guilford.

Whether you experienced your first Halloween before your first birthday or your first year at Guilford, the editorial board hopes you have a fun and safe Halloween this year. Please remember to drink a lot of water, dress in a way that does not appropriate other cultures and look out for your friends.

Some personal anecdotes from our editorial board:

• Since I’m from Brazil, I don’t have many Halloween memories, but last year, I was in Austin, Texas, on Oct. 31 and had the time of my life dressing up with the editorial board and going to different parties around the city. • I’m from a super rural area, so I didn’t do much trick-or-treating or dressing up, but I used to make cupcakes with my mom and my brothers and eat Halloween candy.

• I have a lot of fond memories of pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating and figuring out my costume. Plus, this is the time of year when my dad makes homemade Chex Mix.

• Halloween always brought a sense of adventure for me since I got to explore the neighborhoods and pretend I was someone else for a night. It was a chance to spend time with friends and to eat more candy than I should have.