Halloween Thanks

“Halloween decorations are not supposed to be cute, Mom.  They’re supposed to be scary.”  My son was right.  I’d gotten away with the bare minimum of cute for years—taping up his kindergarten paintings of pumpkins along side jolly glow-in-the-dark skeletons.  But now that he was ten, cute would no longer cut it.  “You’re right,” I said.  “I get it.  And we will make an effort to be scarier next year.”  “Next year?!” he said, already resigned, and padded away.  He knew that scary decorations would have to wait, along with pumpkin carving, apparently.  I bought a perfectly serviceable pumpkin but forgot to carve out the time to put down the newspaper and get out the sharp knives.  My costume was an afterthought, too, (a gorilla suit) also serviceable, but without the giddiness of a well thought out pun or creative tour de force like the family who went as the four seasons—spectacular!  Even my son reused an oldie-but-a-goodie costume from a few Halloweens ago.  I knew not to feel guilty about the last minute phoning in of a beloved childhood holiday—no sense in that.  Instead I invoked the Cub scout motto, “Do your best”, which I deploy liberally to myself on various occasions, then carried on with my workload. 

The village parade was lovely and relaxed, thanks in great part to the DJ, Jeremy Moss, who kept the volume at a reasonable bop-to-the-beat but can-still-talk-to-your-friends level as opposed to the ear-splitting, frenzy-inducing, up-to-eleven volume and stress level of years past.  The costumes were fantastic—loved the doll in the box, the fried egg and dominos, the ice cream truck and 50 shades of grey.  I especially love it when parents dress up, too, and that there were two adults dressed as whoopee cushions.  The business owners all seemed game and happy to see the hoards.

When the sun went down Thursday and we headed out into the dark night for trick-or-treating—the pinnacle of the day’s litany of holiday themed events—I felt a deep gratitude for those who had picked up my slack.  On nearly every street in town, at the end of practically every walkway, was a magical front stoop.  Folks had put out ghouls and witches, reapers and goblins.  They had strung spider webs across porches and hung ghosts in bushes and trees.  And yes, they had carved exquisitely beautiful pumpkins then lit candles inside them, giving off that irrefutable glow of eerie wonder. 

I was so very grateful for my fellow townspersons who, in creating a magical experience for their own families, had inadvertently given us ours.   I wanted to leave little thank-you notes under every front door mat saying, “Thank you for hauling the bins down from the attic, for setting out the newspaper and stringing up the spider.  Thank you for the orange twinkling lights and the bubbling cauldrons, and for putting speakers in the front windows, like my dad used to do when he played the “Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House”—a Disneyland record put out in 1964 meant to scary the pants off of trick-or-treaters, which never did.

The rain turned to drizzle before leaving us alone, and the temperature was unseasonably balmy.  Parents everywhere wandered from house to house with a bounce in their steps and a breezy air of gratitude for the docile weather and semblance of normalcy that had been absent on recent Halloween’s.  Children ran from porch to porch with blithe abandon, anxious to feel the weight of their loot pulling further down on their arms.  Some parents even offered wine in teeny plastic cups, and cheese and crackers to the grown-ups—brief and appreciated respites from the rush.

 After houses began to run out of candy—one woman finally did after handing out 760 pieces—we ended up with other families at the home of friends.  Six or seven kids spread out their candy on living room footstools and floor rugs and they traded with each other as if it were the NY Stock Exchange.  To them it was, in a way, their candy as precious as any dumb commodity.  Outside us parents sipped wine or beer, enjoyed chairs, and traded stories about the costumes that gave us the biggest chuckles found on the internet and spotted at the parade.

Exhausted, my son and I made our way back up the hill and dragged ourselves past our faceless pumpkin, our cute decorations and into pajamas to get ready for bed.  We brushed out teeth more thoroughly than usual, then spoke our thanks out loud.  We said thank you for the weather and for our awesome little town.  Thank you for trick-or-treating and for fabulously scary house decorations.  Thank you for the hundreds of dollars some folks must have spent on candy and the generosity extended from their hearts to our kids’ grubby little hands.  Then we said thanks for Halloween and our friends, and the folks that make it magic.  Next year we’ll step up, too.