Thursday, November 01, 2007
hobgoblins
Halloween is over finally. Hooray! The boys—a NASA astronaut (Winston) and a shadow wearing a purple cloak (Simon)—had a blast trick-or-treating with friends this evening. John even dressed as a cyclist, after a ride. They collected ungodly amounts of candy.
I have many great Halloween memories, which I try to hang on to because I like the holiday less and less with each passing year. Not to mention that I have no sweet-tooth and candy—yeah, not even chocolate bars—holds no charm.
Back in my trick-or-treating days, I would hit the neighborhood with my sister and brother, and friends Ann D., Catie L., and the brothers John and David H. The neighborhood consisted of approximately twenty homes around a portion of the lake where we lived—basically from Catie’s house to just beyond John and David’s house.
One year, John H. dressed up as the Headless Horseman, which was the most creative costume any of us wore—it’s certainly the only one I remember. He rigged a large white button-down shirt and an oversized suit jacket over his head and carried under his arm a basketball “head” replete with a wig.
My favorite costume was a red bandana-print dress with bat-wing sleeves, which was spacious enough to fit a coat (underneath—never over the costume), on the occasion of a cold Halloween. The amazing thing about this costume was that it did double-duty, serving one year as a gypsy and another as a princess. Yes, a bit of a stretch, but there you have it.
After a night of trick-or-treating, I would dump my candy loot into a shoebox and store it under my bed, which allowed me to inventory and monitor it against the ravages of my siblings. First I would eat my least favorite candies—licorice snaps, Hershey bars. Then I would eat the candies comprised purely of sugar—Pixie Stix, Lik ’em Aid, and Sweetarts and Bottle Caps, two each in little paper packets. Next I would eat through the fun-sized candy bar triumvirate—Milky Way, Snickers, 3 Musketeers—saving Almond Joys, Reese’s peanut butter cups, York peppermint patties, Nut Goodies, and Crunch bars for last. Inevitably all that remained—to be dumped—were the loathsome peanut butter taffy, Hershey’s Kisses, and Tootsie Rolls in assorted sizes.
By comparison, my kids eat from their buckets any and all candy, indiscriminately. I'm thinking about putting them in therapy sooner rather than later.
Here are a few of the stand-out Halloweens:
The Halloween blizzard of 1991. My friend Jane and her then-fiance Michael hosted a costume party. When I arrived at her place in the early afternoon to help her decorate, snow was falling. When I left a few hours later, I noticed that all the snow that must have fallen during that time had stuck to the ground. By the time I returned to the party with John, dressed as F. Scott Fitzgerald to my Zelda, around 7 or 8 that evening, the snow was piling up. And so it went.
At some point John and I left the party to meet friends at the Monte Carlo. By this point, driving—even on the freeway—was pretty dangerous. The bartender promised us that if he couldn’t get the front door open against drifting snow, then we could spend the night. At. The. Bar. We remained foolishly optimistic as friends Ted and Paul placed projectiles (wads of paper, cork) at the rim of empty booze bottles and dropped matches into the bottle in the hope of capitalizing on the alcohol as fuel.
Needless to say, we drove home. John spent the night—and the next several days—snowbound at my apartment. The day after the blizzard, my roommate’s boyfriend and his two housemates and their girlfriends helped us dig out our cars. All the guys lifted my compact car and place it the tracks other cars had made on the unplowed street. No lie. I wish I had video because it was pretty amazing.
Our first Halloween as homeowners. John and I moved into our first house on Halloween 1996. After spending the day lifting boxes and making multiple trips between our apartment and our new place, we realized it was Halloween and now that we lived in a house we might actually have trick-or-treaters. Lacking candy to dole out, we turned off the porch light and fled for the bar.
For the past five years, we have trick-or-treated with the same set of families in the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul. The streets are busy with packs of kids and parents, and most houses participate so we really only need to hit two blocks—one side of the street only—before the kids have a month’s supply of goodies. Currently we live in a neighborhood that is heavily wooded and dark. No one uses their front doors on our four-block-long street so to trick-or-treat at our neighbors' houses would mean ringing doorbells in the alley, which is just weird and wrong. Since we’ve got a good gig with our friends, we turn off the yard lights and flee our home on Halloween.
Now is the time for full disclosure: I have some serious issues with Halloween. They’re not what you think. No, the issues don’t revolve around creepy, ghoulish costumes and decorations. These are fairly garden-variety practices that most people accept but that really tick me off. You should stop reading here if you would prefer not to have your Halloween crapped on.
One: retail stores—I’m looking at you Target—set up their Halloween displays too early—lately it's the day after Labor Day. Hello, the day after Labor Day is still summer. For nearly two months you’re looking at this costumes and decorations and bags of candy. It's a given that by the time you need to buy the Halloween costumes mid-October, they’re sold-out.
Two: local businesses that offer candy for trick-or-treating on the Saturday before Halloween. Why is this necessary? A common falsehood runs rampant around this practice—that it’s good advertising/marketing for businesses. The parents who take their kids trick-or-treating at stores are already customers there. Riddle me this, what parents get sucked into this ruse? The ones whose kids aren’t getting enough sugar? The ones who are afraid to take their kids trick-or-treating after dark in their otherwise safe neighborhoods? The ones who like to get “free stuff”?
I find it vulgar. To whit: The boys and I were minding our own business, eating bagels at Bruegger’s on Saturday morning. A woman entered the shop, her kids not even in the door yet, and asked loudly, “Are you giving out candy?”
It's simple: Trick-or-treat on Halloween. Go out at 4:30 p.m. if you want to get the kiddies home by nightfall.
Three: Halloween parties at school. I know that teachers must face extraordinary challenges during Halloween day. Show me a kid that isn’t totally amped to trick-or-treat. I understand that no learning can happen on this day. But, a party with candy and cookies and juice boxes—doesn’t that just compound the problem????? Suggestion: a big play day. Play games—they’re fun and provide a distraction, never mind an educational or physical benefit.
Four: I find it tiring that a one-day holiday, which you can’t even call by its name in school for fear that anyone take religious/cultural offense, gets more stretched out every year.
I feel better. Time for another fun-sized Snickers with almonds—and a cape.
PS. On our way home from our friends’ house tonight, I noticed that one of our neighbors on St. Clair has a lighted Christmas tree in their front window. WTF? I had to remind the boys that we don’t say the word Christmas in our home until the day after Thanksgiving, but then you can say it every day, as often as you like. We’re all about Christmas, but all in good time.
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