not at my house
by bam
if i cranked up the wagon and cut–illegally, mind you, there’s a sign scolding you not to–through the alley, bumped just two blocks toward where the sun sets, i would screech on the brakes–everyone does–at a shrine to the season, the one glowing above, the one that chews kilowatts as if they were candy, all through the most hallowed night.
glows for weeks and weeks in advance, really. the lady who lives there must use up her whole carbon footprint in the instant she plugs in her nine million cords. she’s got every light in the world, and an army of billowing creatures, each powered by fans down below. at least i think so. i hear the sound of something that’s whirring, and i don’t think it’s her, sprawled on the ground, blowing with all of her might.
i imagine the beds at that house are all tucked with sheets that are scary. and not just from the holes that no one is mending. i’d not be surprised if the papier de toilette unrolls with the faces of goblins.
expect no such hysterics here.
not at my house.
we did manage to carve the requisite pumpkin. and my children will not go naked to school (or that wasn’t the plan, anyway). at least one will go off in something approximating a costume.
but if everyone in the world gets just one holiday pass, one time where they can be a scrooge or a grinch or a plain old bump on the log if they please, well, then, i’m in the line awaiting my little orange ticket.
i am, contrary to the river of halloween madness swirling out there, decidedly au contraire. i am the halloween minimalist.
give me a pumpkin and a deadline. tell me i must get it carved. or my children will never forgive me. all right, all right, then, pass me the knife. but make sure it’s a dull-bladed one, so i can curse as i try to impale the sacrificed flesh of the seasonal vegetable victim.
guaranteed, you’ll not find one of those whizbang carver’s deluxe ensembles at my house, the ones i’m certain they sell. with intricate blades to do intricate tricks on the face of the poor bulbous gourd.
at my house it’s strictly euclidean geometry. triangle eyes, triangle mouth. this year, because the little one insisted, because he saw something like it on the neighbors’ front porch, we did add a triangle carved in the cheek. he called it a scar. i played along.
it seems to get worse every year. not that i’m getting worse. really, i’m not. i’m standing still, nonchalantly ignoring the madness.
it’s just that the madness gets madder, gets earlier, gets brighter. and with each string of lights strung on somebody’s porch, or each ghoulish scene staged in someone’s front yard, i sink deeper into my season of seasonal ennui.
a french diagnosis, i tell you, makes even the dreariest syndrome sound just a wee bit exotic. hmm, ennui, mais oui, i feel better already.
i think, doctor ghoul, it goes back to my youth, that place where so many troubles seem to be hatched.
there was annual angst, once i outgrew the suffocating, hard-to-see-through, red-riding-hood mask someone kindly bought at a store, of what in the world i would be. (such are the existential quandaries of adolescence, even if it’s a matter contained solely to the subject of costumes.)
you see, this whole dressing-up thing plays to my deficit. i am, day after day, not so smart in the fashion department. holidays make it no better. certainly not the one that’s upon us, the one that demands sartorial know-how.
except for the year i paraded as a picnic table, complete with red-checked cloth and a marching battalion of ants, i seemed to replay the same humdrum tune year after year. my needle was stuck on bum upon bum upon bum.
take old ratty clothes, add charcoal briquet rubbed on the cheeks. bingo, you had it. license to go bag some chocolate.
and therein lies issue no. 2. i am not, never have been, much of a chocolatey girl. i know, it’s a birth defect. i did manage to make up for it, for a spell there, with bag after bag of what might have sufficed for a food group in college, that ol’ candy corn, three-stripe trifecta of fructose and sugar and syrup of corn.
but without incentive, i ask you, what is the point? why go to such trouble?
as predicted, there i was on the eve of the eve, just last night, begging my mama with needle and thread to please hem the pants of the halloween beggar–i mean child–who switched, at the very last minute, of course, from star wars to football for the costume brigade.
and, oh, do not tell me, here he is at my side, half naked, the player of football. egad, could it be, yes it could, the essential jersey is still rather, um, moist down in the sudsing machine, not yet in the dryer. did i mention it’s quarter past eight and we leave for the school in less time than it takes to spell b-u-s-t-e-d, as in “i am so…”?
that’s not the least of it. after sprinting to the on-demand costume parade, i’ll be scrounging the shelves of the grocery, in search of the elusive and oxymoronic halloween snack that is healthy, a teacher request that i’ll heed out of sympathy, deep and undying.
and then, mr. weather man, he who reads clouds and rains on parades with astonishing regularity, he tells me there’s cold and there’s drizzle in my immediate bone-chilling future. oh, how splendid.
anyone mind if i sit this one out, or at best shuffle slowly behind the one, hopefully fully clothed by the bewitching hour, who is dashing to doorbells, filling his sack with foodstuffs sure to give him the jitters, keep him awake till the saints roll in on the morrow?
oh sinners and saints, i implore you. please give me a nice quiet night with only the glow of a pumpkin. i’ll take a moon, if you will. and maybe an owl. or a wolf off in the distance. that there would be to my liking.
but it’s a notion that seems to be lost in a forest of over-lit trees.
any other hallow’s eve grinches, or less-than-eager participants? step right up, let it rip. or, if, on the other hand, you are gaga for all that is ghoulish, if you live for this day of disguise, if you can’t keep your mitts out of the candy bag, by all means, defend it. speak up for yourself and your holiday. all’s fair here at the table. but don’t expect cute pumpkin cookies, or cupcakes bulging with eyeballs. we’re taking our holiday straight up here. coffee’s black today. (pssst, if you look in the sugar bowl, you might find some corn. candy corn that would be. but of course.)
i was never good at costumesmy stand by is to wear a black shirt with white paper dashes down the center of it and a horizontal fork sewed to my chest, also known as “a fork in the road.” this is the extent of costumes in my book
HALLOWEEN makes me happy. I adore the photo, so twinkly. I love watching the minds of children spin as they choose what they want “to be”, and the list may be 10 long. The hands reaching in to the carved pumpkin to touch the goo enclosed, sogross, they exclaim, yet so fun. The fact that can eat the seeds fascinatesthe children and the hard to do carving makes it all worth while as you seeanyones face when they look at a lit pumpkin. Satisfaction. I love the fact that a few children are still allowed to trick or treat, andrun from house to unknown house and scream “trick or treat” and this complete stranger gives them candy. (even if their parents throw it out or eat it) The charge they get from planning for the day , running with abandon from door to door, and combing over their loot , upon return. I looove the thrillin their faces. It will be remembered long after the sugar melt down, that is for sure. Isn’t it great that it is a voluntary holiday, I believe the only one we have. and lastly nothing sends me to the moon more than seeing the little onesa week later who are still wearing their costume and refuse to give it up, God Bless the parents who allow their imagination a little more time. Halloween and St. Valentines Day are my favorites, and I think alot of it has to do with the fact that is stems from the handmade-ness of these Holidays.We hand made all our cards and all our costumes, it is about creatingfor me.This entry is from a gal who hosted a Children’s pumpkin carving party for 15 years,we had to track kids down for the first year and then it spread like wild fire, now they they have very fond memories of that extravaganza and the mini spook house. enjoy the Feast of all Hallows
oh goodness, emb, you do a good job, a fine job, of convincing me. with each line of your treatise on trick-or-treating i slunk lower and lower here in my chair. how dare i ignore the bare hand reaching into the goo? and yes i did just take in the parade, and the faces, even if on only a few, were priceless. the ones so proud. like the boy who came to my door already this morning, shortly after we realized essential jersey was still rather wet, and stood there, that proud child did, inside a garbage can, complete with glued-on mice scampering up the sides, and the lid for a hat. now that is a something even an old grinch could love. a boy who used his whole imagination, a boy whose mother shlepped to the hardware store, got the smart folk behind the counter to help figure out how in the world to extract the bottom from can, and then put it together, glue gun and all. i will raise my white flag. i’ll surrender. but only because you are so darn convincing. your little bit about the kiddies a whole week later who refuse to exit their costume is reason enough for even old me to give the hallowed bright night a fair second chance……and slj, mind if i borrow that costume? i love a costume that requires some thinking….the ironic costume, indeed. now there is a contest i’d enter….
I am with you, Barb. In our suburb, Halloween is a way to spend money needlessly. Not to mention the carbon footprint of the photo you showed. One of my four children did not like dressing up for Halloween, but at her school everyone dressed up (including all the staff) and then they paraded around the block for all parents and passersby to see. It was painful to see my daughter each year walking without a costume, one year, holding the hand of a teacher dressed as a lion who wanted to give this daughter moral support for being different. (On another topic–this outlying child is now a teen who does not stand and recite the pledge of allegiance to the flag each day in her homeroom either!)
Oh…I am so happy to find like-minded Halloween people. I really, really do like Halloween, but I like the 1950’s black/white version of simplicity (I can hear my 22 year old daughter saying ” Yes mom! We have heard this before! But here it goes again) ok the 50’s version…start thinking about being a hobo or gypsy on Oct. 30th…think for a minute or two about the new interesting store-bought costumes from Woolworths up at Detroit St….let go of that fantasy..too much money…Halloween day go to school.(no parties!!!)..maybe do a worksheet and learn a song about Halloween…get home…help carve the ONE pumpkin….rustle through the house finding costume pieces…mom blackens the cork to make a beard for the hobo people….lends her best costume jewelry and lipstick for the gypsies..dark descends…we head out with our paper grocery bags…collect great candy….come home and start the swap for favorites…go to bed AND, as a Catholic kid – not public…get the next day off because it’s a “holy day of obligation” so no candy before mass in the morning…but NO SCHOOL. No month-long hype….no grownups commandeering the day….just one evening of delight and magic and one day to unwind. I think (like so many other holidays) it has all gotten too much – and I know I am probably starting to sound like an old lady too….but then I am on that pathway anyway so I accept this. All this being said…. I did love sitting out in front of my house tonight, handing out candy and ooohing and ahhing over the darling little ones who are just beginning to experience the magic – just keep it simple folks.
I noticed a new trend in my suburb last night–or maybe it is not a new trend, but a trend I could see because we are still in daylight savings–LOTS OF DADS walking together in pairs or groups of three as their little ones go door to door–carrying plastic cups filled with beer! Sounds like fun. Everyone has a treat.
Carol….it is funny. I was walking the dog around 3 before the kids descended and saw three different dads out fine tuning the decorations on their houses. They were so funny and intent on getting the “look” just right, like big kids! I also saw dads out in groups with their kids…but then I was settled on my chair at the bottom of my steps with my glass of wine…treats indeed!!! Grownups will find a way to have fun too.
Growing up we always went to a pumpkin patch and brought home half the farm, then had an enormous pumpkin carving party (little kids in attendance were totally outclassed) the baroque rules of which are too much to go into now. When I was trick-or-treating age we always made our costumes and I remember in particular a large Big Bird suit that involved about twenty rolls of yellow crepe paper. (I think maybe my mother might’ve helped with that one….) School Halloween parades, however, filled me with dread, being as I was always too embarrassed to show up as anything but a ghost. When I was past trick-or-treating age my brother and I would deck out the front foyer in a miniature haunted house and get dry ice to make smoke and creep out our candy-seekers. It was fun for us if not for them.Somehow Chicago has turned me into a bit of a Halloween grinch. I loathe all the creepy deathy monstery bloody masks kids wear; I don’t like the general loudness; and I really don’t like it when you run out of candy just as the bands of thuggy 14 year olds who aren’t wearing costumes come to your door looking a little hostile and so you run to your pantry in search of something, anything to give them. All I can say is, at least I don’t live on that particular street in my neighborhood that looks like Mardi Gras in pre-Katrina New Orleans every Halloween, with thousands–I do mean thousands–of crazy trick-or-treaters and revelers of all ages making a crashing scene until the wee hours. Thank God for the happy accident of not having been able to afford a house on that street when we were looking to buy.