My parents just sent me a picture of their pumpkin, a huge, bright orange beauty, and my brother responded with a Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin meme, and I was thrust back in time to Halloweens past. I really miss Halloween.
We weren’t unusual in our celebration: we would carve a pumpkin, cutting into the thick orange flesh with a massive knife, scraping out the guts and separating them from the seeds, which my mom would then roast (the best snack ever.) We would watch the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown special, and listen to spooky music records. (Remember the weird one about the skinny toe??? Terrifying when you’re five. That whole record was WILD.)
Then we’d dress up and go trick or treating, which was often a bit of an ordeal, as we lived in the woods. After a few freezing hours, we’d reconvene at the house, dump our pillowcases of candy on the bed for inspection (to make sure no one had inserted a razor blade into an apple or poisoned the candy). Then we’d put on the creepy music again, and gorge ourselves.
I almost always dressed as a witch, in my mother’s costume that she’d worn to school that day. It was handmade, of course, black on one side and a dark purple satin on the inside, and thick enough to keep me warm on the frigid trick-or-treating rounds. Came with a pointy witch hat and everything.
I wore it religiously, except the one year I revolted, cut my hair into a pixie and insisted on going as Peter Pan. (Small identity crisis, quickly overcome.) That was the year mom made me wear my snow boots instead of the adorable little felt slippers we’d made, because it snowed a ton (rude). And good thing she did, because the car driving us from house to house backed over my leg and those stupid thick rubber boots saved me from a severe break. Ruined my outfit, for sure, but saved me from a lifelong limp.
Moms can do that, you know. Ruin things and save you at the same time.
I went back to the annual witch costume. Meekly. The last time I dressed up properly for Halloween, in high school, I used it as a vampire’s cape.
Halloween and I don’t always get along, though I love it as a holiday. A few years before the whole getting hit by a car thing, I fell into a cactus. All of me, top to botton, covered. It took Dr. Gideon HOURS to pull all the spines. My dad said it looked like I had fur. There have been other odd occurrences, so I tend to stick close to home. Not that I’m superstitious or anything. (Reader, I am.)
Now, the family is scattered across the country, and we send photos of our pumpkins in their pre-carved state. We don't have children of our own to dress, and I’ve never been good at costuming or cosplay. My niece and nephew go whole-hog decorating, though, so I get to live vicariously through their life-size skeletons and insanely creepy decor. I honestly haven’t carved a pumpkin in years, not since the advent of the very convenient plug-in jack-o-lantern. (Sacrilege, I know.) I always buy one—I actually bought two this year, one orange, one white (Go Vols!)—but they’re relatively small, and I doubt either have enough seeds to roast. They sit, humbly, on the front steps, until the groundhog decides enough is enough and goes on a bender.
It’s more of a Samhain celebration for us tonight. I will clean the house, decluttering and sweeping away old memories. I’ll make a pot of chili, and when it gets dark, light the fire, and light candles for those we’ve lost. We’ll watch something not too scary but suspenseful, and have a quiet, hopefully uneventful evening. I will do my damndest not to eat the Halloween candy we buy just in case someone’s kids get dropped off in the neighborhood, and fail.
But maybe I’ll go get a big pumpkin this afternoon and give carving it a whirl. We don’t get any trick-or-treaters, so it would really just be for me…but that’s not a terrible idea. Someone told me that I should spend some time this year indulging my inner child. I can’t imagine a better way.
How about you—are you and your family big into Halloween? Or nostalgic for the fun that used to be?
PS: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a special this week on THE WOLVES COME AT NIGHT (.99) and WHITEOUT (no cents). Happy Halloween!
I always loved Halloween as a kid and used to as an adult. One of my favourite memories when I was in high school was actually doing make-up for my older brother who was going to a Halloween part as road kill - I did up his face as a skull, which was so much fun! As an adult, we did do decorations and hand out candy. But I haven't been into it anymore since my dad died around this time 4 years ago. I just get that sadness around this time and don't feel the joy I used to feel in decorating and giving out candy and seeing the fun costumes. Maybe one day I'll get back into it again.
Halloween for me as a kid was always a little confusing. I never knew with which parent I'd be that night. Neither of their neighborhoods ever felt like mine. I don't remember ever picking a costume; miraculously I always had something to wear that wasn't my normal clothes, though.
When I was eleven, I thought it would be cool to decorate the house for my five year-old sister. Out of cut garbage bags and white string, I made ghosts and spiderwebs and innocent, spooky magic. In creating the Halloween I thought she'd love, I found perhaps the first glimmer of the joy of Halloween.
In our now family of five, we've had all sorts of traditions over the years that have been a delight. But even the ones that were fixtures have begun to wane a bit. We didn't make it to Pumpkinfest or our neighborhood's little celebration, this year, because life is too busy. Now my oldest considers trick-or-treating with friends instead of her brothers, there's less enthusiasm for the family costume theme, and I took not one picture the night we carved pumpkins. (They were pretty epic, though.)
I think some of the magic has left us. Or maybe I'm just too tired for it this year.
But now I'm left contemplating. Maybe I'll throw on my Chewbacca costume and mask to pick them up at tutorial today while the chili simmers at home. Maybe I'll plug in the blow up ghosts and put up a few bats on the windows and doors like I've been meaning to for the last month. Maybe I'll let them count candy while the Great Pumpkin plays, yet again, with no concern for how late we're all in bed tonight.
Because maybe, when I think, "I'll just do the things I meant to do this year, next year," I remember: this is it and it's the only one I'm guaranteed.