Halloween 2012

Halloween: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

         I love Halloween for many reasons.  First it signals the start of some of my  favorite holidays.  I get to totally change out the decorations in the house. Down comes the everyday stuff, and up goes the rich oranges, deep reds and golden yellows. The subtle scents of cinnamon, cloves, and pumpkin waft through the air.  No more mowing the lawn or weeding the garden.  What’s not to like

        Second, I love the excitement in the air, and not just from eating too much sugar. Parents and children picking out the perfect costume, thoughts of bags of candy, (lucky teachers of those sugar high kids), and running from house to house to see how many doors you can knock on, that is what it is all about. I love to answer the door just to see this excitement ooze out of the painted faces. This year we have had a plethora (using that big word just for you Sister Orme) of cute costumes come to our door.  Not just the usual Draculas’. Witches, cowboys and cheerleaders, but Yoda, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, bumble bee s, a headless horseman, lady bugs, dark angels, zombies, policemen, and super scary monsters.  They came young and too old to be trick-or-treating.  One group came with their sombreros and guitars and serenaded for their treats.  It being warmer than our usual bitter Halloween weather, there have been more children and they are out later.  So 300 pieces of candy later, it is finally time to turn off the lights and put the tired feet up.

Lastly, I like doing special treat bags for a few favorite people. In years past, I have done them for my youngest sister’s kids.  They have a grandmother and an aunt who spoil them rotten with candy, so they do not go door to door.  They come to my house and down my street and call it good.  Because they get so much candy from the grandmother and aunt, I give them prizes: fancy notebooks and pencils, nail polish and card games.  This year they did not come.  The oldest is off to college, the next was too busy chasing boys, and the youngest was sick.  But, we have a family that we home teach that has two young (ages 7 and 11) and I made special bags of candy, fancy pencils, and popcorn.  Syd made them cookies and we also sent them home with a bottle of pickled green beans. As a special surprise, some good friends showed up at our door. They had just moved back and had not told us.  We are so happy to have them back in town.

There are some things I do not like about Halloween, the scary stuff like haunted houses, scary movies, cold and dark nights and dressing up.  I think that stems from my childhood.  I grew up in a big family, ten children to be exact.  We didn’t have a lot of money for fancy costumes.  My mother had an old barrel full of junk, scratched and dented masks, mismatched bits of old costumes that she had bought or had been given to us.  We would dig through the barrel, hoping to find something to use.  Being in Idaho, it was usually cold and regardless of what your costume was, you had to put a coat over top to make it through the night, so it really didn’t matter.  A beat up mask did the job.  Not much fun in that.  We also lived in the country and only went to a few homes, as they were too far apart.  I remember one year we got to go into town with a cousin. We made a haul that year.  When Patrick was young, money was tight and so we had to be frugal with our money, buying a costume was out of the question.  We put together something lame and called it good. One year he went as an explorer, another as a Dracula, with a plastic bag cape, one year we cut up on old sheet and he was a ghost and another year he was a sand creature from Star Wars.  Not very creative to say the least, but they were affordable. 

We always carved a pumpkin, still do.  Let me rephrase that, Patrick and I carve pumpkins; Syd does not get involved at all.  He lacks any holiday spirit. We often get comments on them, about how creative they are.  Even the simple ones come out fun.  This year was no different, simple but nice.  The last ten years I have grown them, using a giant/mammoth pumpkin seed.  They do not come out nice and round and a perfect shade of orange. Being misshaped only makes them more fun to work with.  One year we grew one that was almost a hundred pounds. This year the largest was only 23 pounds.  Not bad. 

All in all, Halloween is a good, bad and ugly holiday.