Gift of Halloween Memories

​The black plastic bowl is brimming with candy. The front light is burning, even though it’s hard to tell because the sun hasn’t yet set. My old plug-in Jack-o’-lanterns are grinning from atop planters that, until yesterday, held the now dead but once glorious profusion of coleus and grasses that brightened the front of our house throughout the summer months.
 
The queen of the evening, Witch Matilda, holds center court, prepared to properly great all the little children as they approach our home tonight in their cute little costumes and masks.  

​It’s Halloween. The tiniest of the ghosts and goblins, the ones too young to even utter the infamous “Trick or Treat”, will start arriving soon. Their parents will hover close, fingers crossed as they hope their kiddos will remember their manners.
 
I know this because I was one of those parents, a quarter of a century ago.
 
The older costumed kids won’t be far behind. There will be big and small groups of them, holding out a variety of creative bags to collect their treasures. The overly ambitious will lug around pillow cases. Children of traditionalists will hold out plastic pumpkin bowls. Most will remember to thank us for the candy we toss in their bowls, and the lucky ones will have the door opened by my husband. He’s quick to toss in handfuls of treats for each kid, while I hover in the background and worry that we’ll run out of candy before we run out of trick-or-treaters. It’s like a snapshot of our vastly different personalities.
 
Halloween is all about the kids.
 
When our kids were young, we didn’t buy the fancy packaged costumes from Target or the Halloween stores. It was always more fun to take trips to a thrift store or our own closets, then we'd maybe buy the accessories or makeup that would elevate our handmade outfits from old clothes to one-of-a-kind creations.
 
I remember spending hours at my seldom used sewing machine, crafting a darling Humpty Dumpty costume and a colorful clown costume, complete with a red, curly wig for our first born (back before clowns gave me the creeps).
 
By the time child number two arrived, this busy momma no longer had time to sew, but we still worked hard to make sure our kids had fun costumes. Unfortunately, some years the blustery weather of a North Dakota Halloween thwarted our efforts, but the best costumes fit over winter coats and snow pants.

​When the kids were young, our front bay window was our focus for Halloween decorations. We’d work hard to place carved pumpkins, blinking lights, and plenty of cobwebs just right, welcoming the neighborhood kids to our door. My decorating efforts dwindled once they were all out of the house, but this year was different.
 
This year, I pulled out all the old tubs of decorations again. Two things prompted this resurgence of excitement to decorate. First, I hosted our neighborhood Bunco group here on the 18th, and it was fun to set the ambience with orange lights and flickering candles. Plus, I needed an excuse to pull out the old gold lamp I picked up at an estate sale last year. It takes up way too much space in my basement for ninety-five percent of the year, but I love it. 

This year’s decorating efforts were also reinvigorated by little Milo, our 8-month-old (first) grandchild. He loves the glow of the bright orange pumpkin lights inside Grandma’s curio cabinet, even if he doesn’t have a clue about Halloween yet. I can’t wait to see him in his Jack-Jack costume tonight. Too bad his wispy blond hair doesn’t stand up as well as it did when he was a newborn.

​Years ago, October also meant watching classic movies with the kids. The “Halloweentown” series was always a favorite, along with “Twitches” and “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. No one was crazy about the original “Hocus Pocus” in our house, but I admit to sitting down with our now 21-year-old earlier this month to watch the new “Hocus Pocus 2”. There were plenty of laughs, especially the scenes where the centuries-old witches discovered the promises of anti-aging “potions” in the drugstore! Maybe their delight hit too close to home for me.

​Pumpkin carving evenings with our college-aged kids provide more recent favorite Halloween memories. I failed in our first attempt at a party, waiting too long to buy the pumpkins. I remember stopping to pick them up on my way home after a busy day at the office. Of course, I waited until the very night the kids would all be there to carve.
 
It must have been a tough year for pumpkins, because I couldn’t find a single one! After rushing from store to store, my panic rising, I got creative. If carving pumpkins is fun, carving gourds would be just as cool. Maybe even better, since they come in more unique colors and shapes.
 
If you’ve ever tried to carve a gourd before, you’re already smiling. Did you know that the shell of a gourd is much, much harder to cut through than a pumpkin?
 
Our daughter’s new boyfriend joined us for that ill-fated pumpkin carving party, and he was the only one in the bunch that refused to be deterred. Everyone else gave up. His tenacity to cut through that nearly impenetrable shell was telling. We are now proud to call that young man our son-in-law, and I’m still relieved his knife didn’t slip and sever a finger. I’ve never been a fan of Halloween gore.
 
Another year, we kept the pumpkins in the garage until the big night. You can imagine the stampede of six or seven big bodies, pushing and shoving to get to them first for the best selection. They came armed with big ideas, but didn’t always have the skill or patience required to see their imagined creations through to fruition. But it didn’t matter. The evenings would end with all of them sitting under the bay window we used to decorate together, showing off their artistic abilities.

​For me, Halloween is about the memories we’ve made and the opportunity to make new ones with our expanding family. I know some people love Halloween, and some hate it. That’s fine. One of our kids has never been a fan, either. 

​There are aspects of Halloween I’ve never liked, either. I refuse to watch the gory movies and find overly sexy or gross costumes silly. I think of Halloween as a time for kids to play make-believe. It may be the only time in a child’s life when he or she can feel like a princess, or a pony, or a superhero.
 
I also love the warm colors of October, captured so beautifully by nature in crisp leaves, round pumpkins, and crisp apples. It’s the simple pleasure of sneaking a third (or fourth) miniature candy bar out of the black candy bowl on the one night we can cheat without feeling guilty.
 
Halloween is a time of transition. Where I live, we are leaving behind the warmth of summer and moving into the darker, colder months of winter. Soon we will thaw turkeys, make lists of gifts we want to buy for loved ones, and pull out the tubs of Christmas decorations. This brief holiday serves as a doorway from one season to another.

​May your day be blessed with the smiles of children as they enjoy the unlimited magic of their imaginations. If you prefer to leave your lights off and enjoy a quiet evening to yourself, no problem! But I suggest finding an old-rerun of Halloweentown on the television, along with a bowl of popcorn and a Snickers bar.
 
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find the rest of the caramel apple suckers I hid from my husband so they wouldn’t all be gone before tonight. They are a family favorite, after all, but I can’t remember exactly where I put them.

Wishing you a spooky good evening,  Kim