Okay, so I’m about to admit something so dark, so controversial, I’ll bet you’d rather I dove head first into a discussion about politics. It’s not very nice, but I need to get it off my chest. I don’t like Halloween. I know, I know. Blasphemy. I’m sorry. But I never liked it, not even as a child. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve tried my whole life to be a fan; it wasn’t easy to feel like the only kid in the universe who didn’t get excited at the chance to transform into anything my imagination could conjure and get free candy for doing so. Nor is it easy as a mom to hear my family call me a Halloween Grinch, even when I put on a smile try to convince them that I’m having fun. I mean, that’s not fair; I’m not like the Grinch who stole Christmas; I’m not that bah humbug. As an adult, I have found a few things that I genuinely appreciate about Halloween. When my kids were small, I thoroughly enjoyed trick-or-treating with them on the tree-lined sidewalks of our village in suburban Chicagoland, when all the other families were doing the same. I loved the crisp autumn air, the way the fall sky turned sepia as the sun set, and the sound as we all shuffled past each other through a crunchy carpet of fallen leaves. I mused at how the kids showed off their “loot” after each house, critiquing the owner’s offering before scampering off to the next. I loved marvelling at all the creative costumes, especially the homemade masterpieces. And who could resist pouring fancy wine to the brim of a red solo cup before heading out the door on the one night of the year when it’s not only acceptable but encouraged to wander the streets with an open container of booze? Party on the parkway! The sense of community that emanates from the little midwestern town where I grew up and later spent ten years raising children is really something special. But my enthusiasm ends there. Trust me, my complaints about Halloween aren’t simply about gaudy decorations or obscene amounts of candy. I can handle a six foot inflatable Jack-O-Lantern or a four year old crashing out of a sugar high, no problem. For me, it’s the little reminders of some ugly feelings that, hard as I try to mask, sometimes make me less than enthusiastic when the end of October rolls around.
For starters, I was a shy child. (I know, shocking if you’ve only known me as an adult.) I would have rather been swallowed into the earth than have to interact with most people. That in itself made the main event of Halloween, well, kind of tricky. The thought of brazenly strolling up to other people’s houses was unnerving enough, let alone having to speak to whoever opened the door, even if it was just to say three little words. If you asked me, the amount of courage I needed to build up to utter the words “trick or treat” was hardly worth a fun sized Hershey bar.
I was also a scaredy cat. I managed to find terror in the mundane. Like when I noticed the depiction of a flame on the warning label of my mosquito bite reliever and was certain that our house was imminently burning to the ground. My mom’s reasonable proposal to simply get rid of the “dangerous” bottle would have seemed the simple solution, but those bug bites really itched so I kept it and braced myself to spontaneously combust with each use. Then there was the time that I read the plot summary on the back of the “West Side Story” album cover and laid awake for an entire summer worrying that gangsters from The Jets were going to find their way to our cabin in the North Woods of Michigan and stab me in my sleep (with jabs that I’m guessing would have been at least nicely choreographed). And I’ll never get back the hours that my mind replayed the horror of how I’d narrowly escaped being raised by Neanderthal mannequins (hear me out, this made total sense) when I’d been (very) briefly separated from my class during a field trip to The Field Museum. I just knew that if the chaperone hadn’t chased me down I’d have wandered the corridors, alone and afraid, until closing. With no one to take care of me, I would have had no choice but to join the family I remembered seeing at the “Early Man” exhibit we’d toured earlier in the day. The fire and food were as fake as the mother and father figurines, but there was a grass bed in their cave that looked comfy enough, and since my own parents would certainly never have been able to find me in that huge building I’d have to make it work. Talk about A Night at the Museum. If plastic cave people could put me over the edge, you can imagine what the sights and sounds of Halloween did to my fragile soul. One of my first anxiety attacks occurred outside the Haunted House at our village community center. I listened as the kids coming out of it assured those of us waiting to go in that it wasn’t really scary. Maybe not, I thought, but the butterflies in my tummy, pounding heart, and shortened breath were. My panic was so overwhelming that I honestly don’t remember if I actually went through that Haunted House. The last thing I recall was looking around at the mass of kids, buzzing with excitement, and wishing nothing more than to be as cool as they were to be happy about discovering what laid behind those doors to the Community House basement.
And, speaking of cool kids, to put it frankly: I never was one. At this point, if you’re thinking that the trifecta of being shy, anxious, and uncool had the potential to make a mess out of a kid, you’d be correct. I was a hot one. But not to worry. I’m grateful that my supportive parents were more caring and forward thinking than their synthetic Neanderthal counterparts, and realized early that their little girl was a great candidate for therapy. I eventually pulled through, but back in the day being outside of the “it” crowd just added to the stress I already felt about Halloween. Once it became pathetic to trick-or-treat with parents, the pressure was on to find a group of friends – or even one friend – to buddy up with for the evening. One year my mom had the brilliant idea of buying two beautifully made butterfly costumes, one for me and the other for one of the many girls who would surely line up for the chance to join me in wearing the sparkly satin creations. After asking around for weeks with no takers, at the last minute one girl agreed to go with me after she got dumped by her friend. And while it was a relief in the end that I saved face and didn’t have to go out with my family, it felt kind of yucky knowing that I was my fellow butterfly’s last resort. That was the last time I ever trick-or-treated.
Fortunately my disdain for Halloween didn’t rub off on my own children. My kids have always delighted in every spooky sight and every devilish detail. Luckily for them, they have a dad who does, too. Other than the time his Green Goblin costume accidentally scared the living bejesus out of our toddler and sent her screaming into her grandmother’s arms for the rest of the night (notice the picture in which our little white bunny is conspicuously missing), my husband has made Halloween absolutely magical for our three kiddos. Growing up, they eagerly anticipated his annual “Haunted Garage,” which he ingeniously and painstakingly erected each year in the spot where our cars otherwise sat. He’d guide his willing subjects through winding, smoke-filled pathways which led past motion activated ghosts and spiders, boxes of pulsing “hearts” and slithering “guts”, and ultimately to the mirror that he promised would reveal “The Scariest Ghoul of All!” to those who dared look into it. Even as young adults, my kids still carefully select the perfect pumpkins to fit the intricate designs that they will later carve. And each year I’ve felt guilty for being irked that my car was displaced for the two weeks that the garage was haunted, or for how it takes forever to extract those darn pumpkin seeds from that slimy pulp. But then I remind myself of the joyful giddiness with which the kids used to emerge from the Haunted Garage, and how delicious freshly baked pumpkin seeds taste with just the right amount of salt. I don’t want to be a Halloween Grinch. I don’t want to spoil anyone else’s fun. Go ahead and deck your halls with boughs of skeletons and I’ll pour more pinot into my solo cup. I promise to keep searching for the trick to liking Halloween. That is, if you’ll promise to cut me some slack for not always finding it a treat.
The Empty Next 