When I was growing up Halloween was strictly a children's holiday. Candy, pranks, amateurish costumes, mildly scary fun houses and ... did I mention candy ... were the priorities of the day.

But it seems that while I was growing up, so did the celebratory significance of Halloween. It's as if baby boomers, forced to abandon other childhood toys and privileges, couldn't give up on this one. As a holiday, it grew apace and now seems to be fully in the adult domain.

Halloween has become a full-fledged industry. Mail-order catalogs are crammed with everything from fake coffins, tombstones and faux-stuffed ravens to dismembered body parts that you can include in a package when sending out your party invitations. Children are now lucky if parents take time out from their own expensive gatherings to accompany them on their trick-or-treat rounds.

I am not saying, "bah-humbug" to Halloween but I do think we need to gain some perspective on the occasion and give it back, in a simpler form, as a gift to our children.

Here are some suggestions for making the holiday festive without huge finances. Most of these suggestions invoke the Halloween celebrations of 30 to 40 years ago, but who can argue with successful, fun-filled memories?

If you are planning to throw a party, make it appropriate for both children and adults. Create a theme that is more silly than scary, one that involves a fun menu, decorations and beverages but doesn't rely on the cliche of witches and ghosts.

• One idea is to plan a party based on old television shows, the ones you grew up with or the ones the children now are rediscovering on Nickelodeon such as Bewitched, Get Smart or The Beverly Hillbillies.

  Those old shows suggest plenty of costume ideas--vintage '60s dresses and suits, sleek and stylish spy getups and L'il Abner knock-offs. These costumes are easily constructed from items found in attics, thrift shops and discount stores.

   

• Create a party theme based on food. A friend of mine recently attended a "Back of the Box" party. That party involved everyone bringing a food dish from a recipe found on a can, a mix or box of prepared food. There were some "Mock Apple Pies" from the Ritz cracker box, hamburger pie recipes from a variety of sources, salad creations from pre-washed, packaged lettuce and Muddy Buddies, a personal favorite, from a box of Chex cereal.

  In a recent issue of House & Garden, an article called "Lost Desserts" could be the inspiration for a dessert party based on nostalgia for the food treats of yesterday. The magazine featured some plain and fancy desserts but you can try and recall some dessert that hasn't graced your table since childhood. For me it would be a confection we called, simply, Peach Dessert. Canned peaches suspended in a whipped cream float over a cloud of baked meringue on a graham-cracker crust. For my father, nostalgia dictates I bake a walnut cake with butter cream icing or a sour cream raisin pie.

   

• Steer clear of dime-store decorations when dressing your home for Halloween. Instead of plastic pumpkins, witch candles and nylon cobwebs decorate with fall produce and flowers. Celebrate the rich colors of autumn in setting up Halloween displays. Pick up an assortment of pumpkins and gourds and mound them together on a wicker tray or in a wire basket. Look for variety in colors, stripes and shapes. Offset your display with altar candles in glass jars that are readily available at grocery stores.

   

• Use your collectibles to full effect at Halloween. If you collect Mexican Day of the Dead paraphernalia, group your collection together on a mantle or buffet table. Likewise, decorate a tabletop with Venetian masks, Victorian paper masks attached to dowels and displayed as a bouquet in a vase, or papier mâché animals and figures lined up on a shelf.

   

• Set up a "museum table" of unusual found or natural objects that may delight or amaze a viewer. Keep this display table free of other objects that may distract from your purpose of creating a fascinating collection. Some items for your museum table might include a skull and antlers, bits of coral, petrified wood, tortoise shells, old specimen jars filled with equally old specimens or washed and filled with candy corn, seashell and sea star collections, baby teeth, pulled teeth, a live carnivorous plant (often available at botanical centers or in nursery catalogs) or a butterfly or bug collection.

   

• Give children the necessary materials, such as construction paper, scissors, glue, glitter and streamers, and let them make the decorations. Or, proudly display the art projects from school that celebrate the fall season. My son once made a scarecrow "bust" at school by taking an old sweatshirt on a hanger and stuffing it with straw. A papier-mâché head with yarn hair and a painted face was stuck on top of the hanger. This creation together with several jack-o-lanterns was the extent of our Halloween display that year.

At a time when world events overshadow even our scariest imaginations, return the celebration of Halloween to that of a simpler time, a fall festival that marks the transition from the harvest to the season of frost and dormancy. Accompany your children on their trick-or-treat rounds and remember to have ready access to a supply of change for their UNICEF boxes, another Halloween tradition that lives on at many schools and in many communities.