To Trick or to Treat
Trick or treat? I mean, who doesn’t prefer the treat? I’m about to go buy a large pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups for myself since trick-or-treating doesn’t seem to be happening this year. Plus, I’m a little old for it now I suppose.
When it comes to “boo”, I prefer the peek-a-boo version. Anyone else? It’s Halloween week, and my feelings about the holiday have changed pretty much every few years of my life. One thing has remained the same, I do not like the scary, grotesque side of the celebration. I am not sure if I should thank my mother for that or if it’s just my personality.
It’s safe to say that we grow up thinking our own family’s rituals or idioms are universal or “normal”. At some point though, we realize that none of our friends do or say things that way and our worlds are turned inside out. Our sense of reality is expanded and our childhood is then tainted. As a true adult now, I can look back fondly and understand why my parents did the things they did. And of course, I can laugh about it much more than I did when I was 15.
All that to say, my mother created lasting memories for me and my siblings on this particular holiday. Perhaps not the same type of memories some people have, but I embrace it now. The origin of Halloween is where my mother could not get on board. The whole witches and celebration of death was not something that we wanted to focus on. I always understood that factor. But the candy and the fun costumes, what’s wrong with that?
She tried. Every Halloween my mom would prepare the house. This means she would close all of the window shades and turn off the lights so it looked like no one was home. Sometimes she would leave a bowl of candy out, or some little trinkets, sometimes tracts from church, and she would leave a note on the door explaining that we don’t celebrate Halloween.
So, your first question is, what were you doing while the house was on lockdown? Well, there were options. Sometimes we would stay home and do something fun like watch movies. Of course, we would spend at least an hour peeking out the window at the kids trick-or-treating to judge their costumes. If we were not at home we got to go to a fun place like Chuck E. Cheese! Those were the best Halloweens. We mostly had the place to ourselves and we didn’t have to work very hard for candy.
Your second question is, did you feel like you were missing out? Most of the time, no. I think we had plenty of fun together (there are five of us), so we didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in the outside world. There were a few years that I wanted to be like everyone else, but as long as I had some candy, that was enough treat for me.
Fast forward to now. I have an 18 month old son and all I want to do is dress him up every day. Though I am torn about how to handle Halloween as he gets older. Even now when we walk around the neighborhood and see the spooky decorations on some houses, he kind of just looks at them with a confused look on his face. And I’m like, yes, me too. So, this year I will probably dress him as a fireman (his favorite) or Woody from Toy Story and take a cute photo, but then I will question if I should pull down all my shades next year and go to Chuck E. Cheese instead. Anyone else? Halloween is just weird. I appreciate the treats but bring on Thanksgiving and Christmas! I’m ready to host all of those!
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