My participation in Halloween is mostly in service to my kids - especially my younger son, who treats it like a national holiday.
Several years ago, as a toddler - noticing that our neighbors were decorating their houses more elaborately than we were - he angrily asked his father, "WHY ISN'T THE HOUSE DECORATED? I WANT TO TURN THE FRONT DOOR INTO A SCARE HOLE!”
The next year we remedied the situation, somewhat.
No Demon Children Here!
I’m used to it now, but this enthusiastic embrace of Halloween is SO different from what I experienced growing up. I was a little kid in the 1980s - the height of the Satanic Panic - and as evangelicals, we were particularly cautious about “celebrating evil” and always stood at a remove from the festivities.
We even avoided the term “Halloween” - couldn’t give the Devil that win. So we called it “Harvest Evening” instead, often celebrating at church parties or with our Christian friends at home, bobbing for apples in my parents’ basement and exchanging candy amongst ourselves.
Trick-or-treating, if we did it at all, was usually restricted to friends and close neighbors. One year we knocked on the door of a family from church, who was handing out Christian tracts along with the candy, spreading the Good News to the little ghosts and goblins.
No “scare holes,” either
The number-one rule for us was no scary costumes: no witches or ghosts in this household! We didn’t want to “glorify Satan.” So we were limited to animals and storybook characters - once I dressed up as Little Bo Peep.
One extra-godly year, I visited friends dressed as “Sarah in the Bible” - wearing a collection of thrift-store purchases we’d assembled in an effort to approximate our vision of biblical garb. In a picture that I think still exists somewhere, I’m about seven years old, wearing a flowing dress with a scarf draped over my hair, walking in the front door of my extremely-not-religious grandfather, who must have had his own thoughts about it.
But the restrictions really didn’t bother me, because there was still candy involved, and my mom got creative with our wholesome costumes. Around age 3 or 4, I desperately wanted to be the Pillsbury Doughboy with his white hat and adult onesie. My mom bought a yellow pair of footie pajamas - the closest thing she could find to a doughboy suit - and tried bleaching it, repeatedly. When that failed, she determined that I should instead be a bumblebee: in now-faded yellow PJs, black pipe cleaners affixed to a whirly cap for antennae, and a stinger drawn in permanent marker on my backside.
Tired Moms and Slutty Old Men
These days, I think back on so many Halloween costumes for my children, and they all kind of blur together: the dragon, the cow wearing cowboy boots, Medusa with his little plastic party favor snakes tied into a wig - and countless superheroes.
I’ve generally discouraged abject blood and gore - it still feels a bit distasteful, at least to me. There are plenty of real-life things to be afraid of, and I’m sympathetic to the idea that dwelling on fear and darkness isn’t helpful. But I understand now, after more years of participating in Halloween and all its festivities than those years removed from it, that the real purpose is coming together, and knocking on our neighbors’ doors.
My kids have mostly gravitated toward fun and fanciful stuff anyway, although there has been the occasional scary mask or Grim Reaper. They don’t appear to have been harmed by that - at least no more than I was harmed by trick-or-treating as a woman specifically chosen by God to give birth at age 90.
As an adult, most years I’ve attended Halloween gatherings dressed as “A Tired Mom” because - while my younger/child-free/more energetic friends were dressing up in edgy and creative costumes - I long ago lost the drive and energy for that level of effort.
There was the one year, though, when I got so tired of the “slutty” costume trend - which mostly follows the formula of “woman + career + make it sexy” - that I decided to put my own spin on it: I went to a party as a “Slutty Old Man.”
The empty pillowcase
It’s bittersweet now: with one kid in high school and the youngest in middle school, I realize this chapter is coming to an end. It won’t be long before there will be no more costumes, no more pillowcases or pumpkin baskets full of candy for me to steal…I mean tax…while the boys are at school.
And yes, the older moms all warned me, annoyingly at the time - but it does happen so, so very fast.
The oldest is doing his own thing with his friends. But the younger one is still prepping a weird apocalyptic costume that I can’t really explain (it involves a bow and arrow and a special flashlight; that’s all I can tell you), and is eager for trick-or-treating. So we’re doing it, at least for one more year. There’s a lot going on right now in the news, as you may be aware, and it’s an inconvenient time for me to be home, but I’m wedging Halloween in between everything else because I know full well it might be the last one like this.
In 2015, when I was in the thick of campaign reporting, my editor - a mom of four older kids herself - insisted I go back home to be with the boys, then 8 and 4. I remember wondering if it was really necessary - there would be so many more Halloweens - but I went home anyway. As my boys migrate toward young men, I think I now understand why she insisted.
So this Halloween - sorry, Harvest Evening - I’m trying to savor every moment, in all its bittersweetness.
My "harvest party" costumes growing up included "Ruth" and "Esther"; I guess the closest I could get to "princess." Now, I am absolutely loving my 6-year-old's enthusiasm for Halloween, including his insistence that we decorate the house and yard. It is a delight to get a bit of a second chance at it all. And I love the bit about your editor insisting that you go home in 2015, and your reflections on that now--it's encouragement that the time I'll be taking off on Monday for a class party + Trick or Treating is worthwhile (so maybe I shouldn't feel quite so guilty about it).
"Nothing prepares you for how quickly those superheroes start learning to fly" - so true! The spring my daughter was a senior in high school, I came across the pumpkin carving tools in the kitchen drawer and burst into tears because I realized she wouldn't be at home for Halloween. I miss my costume-making days (but I also love having adult children). Thanks for this essay. It brought back some sweet memories.