Halloween
or a little rambling about holidays
Halloween was Dad’s holiday.
In many ways, every holiday was Dad’s holiday after the divorce. My mom has never been particularly celebratory. She would have made a great Jehovah’s Witness. She made a lot of our costumes when we were little but I don’t remember ever doing anything other than visiting my grandparents who made Monster Cookies and hot apple cider. We didn’t have many traditions growing up. Neither of them brought any from their families so we did unusual things like pizza for birthday cake and laundry baskets for Easter. After my parents divorced, Dad took on the mantle of trying to make every holiday with him fun. He wasn’t always great at it, but he tried his best, and Trick-or-Treating is hard to mess up. We put together our own costumes, so all he had to to do was drive to town where there are people, set rural children free. But it worked: it made us happy.
We’d head into Frenchtown, a very small twelve-block residential burg that was (and still is, probably more so now) absolutely perfect for trick-or-treat. It’s small, safe, and the people are generous. As a young kid, I was a bit overwhelmed by the crowds, but also amazed at where all those people came from? The typically quiet streets filled at dusk with costumes and shouting and laughter. Toilet paper streamed from branches, the remnants of Mischief Night, which was the previous night. And my pillowcase filled up fast. I wasn’t allowed to have sugar very often, so Halloween felt like being spoiled in all the best ways.
When I became a mom, I also made my kids costumes. I even used my mom’s sewing machine, and taught myself how to follow a pattern, pinning the thin, crinkly paper to the fabric, cutting and sewing until the thing I made resembled the thing on the package. I wasn’t fantastic at it, and I could never afford the more luxurious fabrics I wished for, but they held up well enough and served their purpose for a night. I loved taking the kids trick-or-treating and we’d usually dress up as a family, an acceptable way to keep playing as a grown up. And my daughter would wear her costumes until they fell away to threads.
Like me, she trick-or-treated way past elementary school and like me she got “yelled” at by folks who thought there should be an age cut-off for candy-begging. But it was about more than the candy. It angered me when I was a teen, and saddened me as a mom that people wouldn’t let kids be kids just a little bit longer. Let them be lost in the magic of a spooky night, wandering around the streets in a safe freedom before setting out into a world where the monsters are real.
I no longer have a desire to dress up. Somewhere along the way I think I forgot how to pretend, or how to have fun. Even this photo from Halloween in the middle of the pandemic, in the middle of the woods where it was just the three of us—me, my husband and daughter—I think it took some prodding and some wine for me to go along with it. It’s a fun memory, but I think of it as marking a turn in my ability to be playful, to hold on to some of that childhood magic. These days it’s officially gone. That sounds so depressing, but it doesn’t feel entirely depressing to me. I’m just different now.
That being said, I wouldn’t turn away teenagers if we had trick-or-treaters. I’m not that much of a curmudgeon. And I cherish Halloween memories, possibly more than any other holiday because it was purely for fun and celebration. There was no guilt or false belief attached. I got to pretend to be a character or creature, I didn’t have to pretend to be a born again Christian—the biggest acting gig of my life. (Probably need a whole essay or two just on that)
Holidays had so much emotional baggage back then. Don’t even get me started on the emotional manipulation of Easter week. I know many love the rituals and observations of a resurrection that come along with the rebirth of spring, and I did appreciate some of it, but just give me spring. That’s enough for me to celebrate.
But back to Halloween. I hope everyone has a blast with their kids today. Joe and I will be at Wordplay bookstore handing out candy and free BOOks with their amazing team. And I look forward to seeing the families and kids have a wonderful time pretending to be whatever they want to be in a healthy and fun way.
