Halloween

We had a surprisingly lovely Halloween. “Lovely” isn’t the first adjective I’d usually associate with that holiday, but there it is.

The kids helped scoop out the pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns before I carved them the night before Halloween. Annie was especially into it and stayed to scoop long after the others ran off to help Daddy in the yard.

Our friends down the street invited us over for pizza and salad and then we bundled the kids up and piled out into the crisp fall air for trick-or-treating. They have three boys in the same age range as our children and we love having them as neighbors. Our kids routinely play together, we’ve had them up for s’mores, most of the children went to nature camp together this summer, and I attend a community Bible study with the mother. Our kids had a great time rushing together from house to house this year.

We live in a fairly quiet neighborhood with few children and many reserved neighbors who stick to themselves and don’t even go into their yards. After some initial loneliness here we’ve been working hard at building relationships in our community and we noticed it paying off this Halloween. It felt like such a cheerful, neighborly, social evening with friendly greetings and brief catch ups all through the neighborhood.

Our kids reveled in the unheard of privilege of ten pieces of candy before bed, enjoyed a couple more pieces each day through the weekend, and that was that.

I have mixed feelings about Halloween. My parents, concerned by the gleeful representations of evil in our town and the holiday’s historical background, decided our family would no longer celebrate Halloween when I was about eight. I respect their thoughtful decision, but also love the simple fun and pageantry of it for little kids: costumes, crunching through fallen leaves in the cold and dark with friends, friendly neighbors, treats.  Nobody in our neighborhood puts up scary decorations. There’s little preparation required (bag of candy, pumpkin or two, costumes, no house cleaning or cooking!, done) and it only lasts a day. I think one of the reasons I love Halloween is that there’s no other holiday like it for community, at least here in the United States. On Thanksgiving most people celebrate with family or close friends or perhaps invite lonely strangers. Christmas is almost always with family, New Years with family or friends, Easter with family and church, Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor day with friends or family. Halloween, though, is with your neighborhood. It’s the day when everyone with kids steps out and greets everyone else in the neighborhood, and almost every neighbor opens their door with a big smile to see the costumes and say hello to the adults. We had neighbors we barely know checking before the holiday to make sure we were planning on stopping by their house and met new neighbors who’d just moved in.

Three weeks later all the leaves are down, snow covers the ground, and I’m planning dishes for Thanksgiving. In my childhood the earliest snow I can remember was on Halloween, but in the past few years we’ve already had several rounds of sticking snow by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. It’s dark by late afternoon, and we have candles with dinner and a fire in the fireplace almost every night. Cozy season is here!