The Spirit of Halloween

            Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. It’s about pure, good spirited fun, without the exhausting commercialism of Christmas or the sheer culinary effort of Thanksgiving. I like the idea that veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is worn and frayed during the autumnal holiday, that perhaps our ancestors are a little more present. It is also my favorite holiday because the expectations on parents are so much lower. You buy a few bags of candy, carve some pumpkins, pop on your house lights, and you’ve satisfied familial expectations for holiday bliss. Parents can even shirk responsibility for the whole costume thing. As your children get older, it can be more about their imagination and vision. When we were kids, a large part of the fun of Halloween was assembling a costume from miscellaneous items in the attic. One reason I choose to be the candy-giver-outer is because I love seeing homemade costumes, the plastic bag jellyfish and the cardboard box Minecraft guys. Some moms truly step up their games.

            While Halloween is my favorite holiday, I struggle with the scary aspects of it. Horror movies are big this time of year, and I close my eyes during their commercials. I am a huge Stephen King fan, but the whole “It” thing has thoroughly ruined red balloons and clowns for me. Every haunted house has a “clown room.” Several years ago, I took my then preteen kids to a local haunted house. That cool, windy, October night, I subjected myself to a cardiac stress test and exited the attraction with suspiciously warm and wet leggings all in the name of Halloween fun. Later that night, I recall lying on my bed, unable to sleep, exhausted but exhilarated. After that, I don’t think I went down into the basement at night until the New Year.

            Adults get to participate in Halloween mischief and mayhem more than in other holidays.  We can be young at Halloween in a way that you can’t on the other holidays with their attendant responsibilities. Adults and college students can dress up and escape their identities for a little while. All of us have had those suspiciously tall trick-or-treaters who have real facial hair. I say more power to them, for they are truly grabbing hold of the magic of this liminal holiday. But it is the parents of the youngest kids whose eyes are brightest with excitement. Their wee ones may only make it around a block or two before wanting to go home to inventory their candy, but those parents will want to hit every porch until all of the houses go dark and their offspring are completely cranky and exhausted. Now, my kids are too old to want to trick or treat and my husband and I carve the pumpkins alone. But I will admit my heart beats a little faster when I wrap that enormous black widow spider’s legs around the porch rails and put out the green graveyard ghost sign that reads “I’m a goner.” Strobe lights from the Dollar Store add a certain je ne sais quoi to our holiday display.

            You can’t really mess up Halloween, though recently we came close. That year, my sister was staying with us for the holiday. We had gone out and purchased a metric ton of candy. We had the lights on early, creepy music playing, the strobes, flashing. We were ready, or at least we seemed to be. I made the mistake of having my kids hand out candy without proper instruction. Encouraged by my husband, my son and daughter handed out fistfuls. I may be chintzy on the candy hand out, but as the one who keeps a running tally of the number of trick-or-treaters on a given Halloween eve, I am acutely aware of the potential for disaster. My children didn’t know that our new neighborhood is some sort of Halloween hub. My theory is that kids are being bussed in. At six thirty, we ran out of candy. THE HORROR. My sister was appalled. My kids were aghast. We were officially “unhalloweeny.” Quickly, I turned out the lights and instructed my crew to hide, so the remaining parades of holiday revelers out in our neighborhood wouldn’t see us. I called my eldest, who was not yet home, to make a run over to a nearby hardware store and procure whatever candy might remain on the shelves. But we forgot the strobes. I still remember that wet armpit, heart pounding feeling as the doorbell continued to ring. I am not sure it helped that when my son got home shortly thereafter with several bags of candy, I ran down the sidewalk in costume waving my arms and calling for the kids and parents to come back. At school the next day, after several of my students mentioned being chased by a “giant green M&M,” I chose not to reply when asked what my costume had been the night before.