Let's Talk About...Halloween

Ok. Halloween is looming. It’s the first holiday wave. Undoubtedly, some of you have been buying and eating candy since Labor Day. Many have been making costumes, buying costumes or just thinking about costumes for weeks. Those messy pumpkins have been carefully carved. It is a big deal for all the kids (and adults) to go trick or treating and bring home all that loot just to consume it all in one big tummy ache.

But let’s review. Halloween is not for everyone. Basically, people fall into two camps: (1) people who go all out, or (2) people who sit in the backyard with all the lights out until it’s over.

I have fallen into both camps over the years. But the first is so much more fun.

My parents (I mean, my mom) and all of us kids used to plan Halloween for weeks. Every year, we would get more and more elaborate in our efforts to scare the daylights out of sweet little ghosts and cats and vampires who were just hoping for a piece of candy.

The goal was always to make the kids endure something horribly frightening before the ultimate reward: a piece of bubble gum. That sounds kind of messed up, doesn’t it? Eventually, the goal became to scare the parents, which would then totally terrify the kids.

We lived on a corner with a big front yard. It wasn’t Elm Street, but it was meant to be a nightmare.

Obviously, the yard quickly turned into a horror show. There was the obligatory cemetery and hanging noosed dummies. Scary music, scary lights, a maze of scary spiders, webs and gore before the kids got to the Grim Reaper guarding the front door for that coveted Tootsie Roll.

Imagine dummies in chairs, on the lawn, in the trees. Once in a while, when that seven-year-old would go up and touch each one to show off to his friends that he wasn’t scared, that scarecrow (or old lady or football player or farmer) would jump up and send him fleeing back to the safety of his mom and dad. It never got old.

We had a vampire in a coffin who would unexpectedly sit up. We had a tent that each child had to walk through blindfolded and touch brains and guts and eyeballs. We had a skeleton in a wheelchair who, by remote control, would talk and move and blink its red eyes. We had witches and fortune tellers and lots of blood everywhere.

We would make one of my brothers walk around with an ax in his head, blood dripping down his face, begging for help. More recently, we had a drone-ghost whizzing over everyone’s heads, which was surprisingly scary!

You know the drill.

However, my all-time favorite was when one of my brothers dressed up as a giant pumpkin. You might think there is nothing scary about that. He would kneel on the grass in the middle of the lawn surrounded by other pumpkins and not move. Kids would come and go, and some would stop to touch him. He wouldn’t move.

But then he would spot the kid who proclaimed to his friends, “This isn’t scary. This isn’t real.” My brother would wait. And wait.

Just when the kid would turn around and mutter, “Let’s go. This is dumb,” my brother would slowly stand up. The seven foot tall jack o’lantern would calmly follow that kid down the street. He never said a word. Never touched him. Just followed him. To the next house. And wait. Then to the next house. And wait. And then to the next house.

That kid would freak out!

Eventually, my brother would walk back home, settle onto the grass, and do it all again. It never got old either. As they say, good things come to those who wait. And, boy, that was good.

As an adult, I have tried to emulate those days. But some years, I answer the door and try to name all the characters in front of me, exclaim how perfect everyone looks, give out “fun size” Snickers and watch as the kids go back to the sidewalk to their parents, who all seem to be holding a Starbucks or Yeti cup. What is in those cups anyway?

But other years, I have to admit I have fallen more into the second of the two camps where my husband and I sit in the back of the house, put out a bowl of candy bars with a “Take One” sign and just wait it out. What happened to us? Halloween burn-out? Perhaps. Fewer kids? Perhaps.

It’s time to give out full-sized candy bars dressed in that old dead bride costume. That will do the trick and be a treat.