The saddest part of Halloween
Posted: September 24th, 2009 | Author: Dave | Filed under: Featured, Toddlers | Tags: halloween, kids, parenthood, parenting, peanut allergy, trick-or-treat | 3 Comments »
Next month is October, and that means Halloween, one of my favorite holidays. When I was young, my aunt decorated her house like the set of a Vincent Price movie. She wore an elaborate witch costume and greeted kids in character, cackling and over-acting. I don’t know what was more fun: anticipating how she’d outdo the previous year or watching the unsuspecting kids poop themselves when she threw open the door.
When I say she gave out candy, I mean the good stuff. No “Fun Size” candy bars, no generic gum, no popcorn balls and no freaking apples. I’m talking about the full-sized Snickers and Bazooka Joe. Primo.
My parents would stand at the end of the block and wait while we performed from house to house. We had to sing, dance, tell jokes, or do something more than knock. One year that I went as Jimmy Carter and a friend was Ronald Regan. We went from house to house performing the mini “debate” we had worked out. Boy, I was a dork.
By comparison, my own kids’ Halloween is dull. Last year, Grace wore a Snow White dress that she already owns. Paired with her red ruby slippers and blond hair, she was a mish-mash of fictional characters (I called her Snow White in Oz). William wore an Old Navy dog costume that was just a glorified coat and hat.
Strangest of all is the trick-or-treating. We went to Main Street around 4:00. The shopkeepers “decorated” (if a skull Xeroxed to orange paper counts as a decoration) and handed out candy to the kids. The whole thing is profoundly strange. First, we were out during the day! What the hell? Secondly, we visited stores, not people’s homes. Nothing says “Halloween” like a bag of Twizzlers from the head shop. However, Main Street was packed with kids and their families, so I guess we aren’t the only strange ones.
We got home around 7:00, and that’s when I performed the Saddest Part Of Halloween. Gracie has a peanut allergy, which means I must divide her loot into two piles: “Edible” and “Lethal” (see above). It’s sad to deny her a portion of her candy, but even sadder to slam an EpiPen into her leg and rush to the ER.
So, that’s our Halloween. Different than I remember, but still fun. Mostly.
Most of the towns around here designate a trick or treating time (don’t call it “halloweening” like we did in Scranton, unless you want to get laughed at) during the day too. Ours has night hours though. So last year I made a big pot of soup and invited all our friends from Kent (with its loser day hours) over to go halloweening with us. (I made them call it that. My house, my rules.) The kids didn’t sing (they all still don’t believe me on that one) but the kids got loaded up with candy. Then, bless them, they all dumped their bags on my living room floor and traded out with Jane the gluten candy she can’t have. Warmed my heart!
It’s frustrating that a lot of those little halloween size candies don’t have ingredient lists, isn’t it?
Kell – I still call the kids who come to the door in costume “Halloweeners,” so I know what you’re saying!
And that’s very sweet about Jane and her friends.
My parents use to think that Halloween was of the Devil. Most of my costumes growing up were biblical characters from the Old Testament. Those, of course, sucked. I would much rather perform on cue to get treats than be put in a lockout at the church gym dressed as David…I had no shirt on for crying out loud!