Hollow's Eve Revisited

Halloween begins at our house in early October with the catalog costume shopping with Grandma. She is the one who generously outfits the kids each year. My mom is very big into holidays. She has a whole parcel of decorations out for each holiday—even to the point of having seasonal bathroom towels. Some how I never picked up that gene. I’m the guy shopping for Christmas at 7:00 pm on Christmas eve.

But the kids sit down a pour over the catalog, pointing with excitement. Lemur studies each page intently, scrutinizing each choice---and then inevitably chooses a Ninja costume, like he does every year. This year it was different. This year the Ninja costume had muscles sewn in.

Kitten, being 15 now and in high school, is too old for trick-or-treating, so she has opted to stay at our house and give out candy with some of her friends. But she’s not so old that she doesn’t want to be made up. This year she wants to be done up as a character from the musical Cats. This is much better than her previous years choices, which usually ended up being so specific that no one could tell what she was. Last year, she was Buffy the vampire slayer. Her costume consisted of a trendy teen-ager in black boots, blood spattered with a wooden stake. Some people guessed that she was depicting a teen driving accident.

But this year she’s in luck. My final exam in my college make-up class was a character from Cats. And I scored very well on that one. So daddy will be able to put some of his college education to use for once.

Her friends showed up in costume too, to help her give out candy. The funniest one was the boy who showed up as the Phantom of the Opera with a mask made up of paper napkins and duct tape. He knocked on the door, and when I opened it he presented me with a squash and a “Happy Halloween”.

I asked, “Is this a tradition in your country?” I never got an answer for what the squash was about.

But my daughter sat him down and painted a Phantom mask on his face so he didn’t have to spend the rest of the night with the napkin/duct tape mask.



Then we took our little Bear dressed as a dragon rider, and our Ninja, and stepped off the porch to begin our rounds. We have a real good neighborhood. Lots of kids and people who like kids, so many porch lights are on---indicating the houses who are participating in trick-or-treat. And all the families go up and down the block---up one side of the street and down the other like a big clockwise costume parade.

Bear didn’t really realize what was going on, but he was fascinated by all the people in costumes and decorations. I was practically carrying him by one arm trying to keep him moving forward. Then at the first house the neighbor lady brought a big orange holiday bowl to the door and down to Bears eye level to pick out his choice of treat. That instantly cured his A.D.D. His eyes grew wide as he stared in the bowl and he let go with an “Oh My GOSH!”

At that moment it clicked and he realized the allure of this fall festival. As we went around to each door we prompted him to say “Trick or Treat!”. In his mind that got translated as “GET a Treat”, so that’s what he would say at each door. That got a couple laughs.

Robo, on the other hand, dressed in his Grim Reaper costume and went off to go door to door with his friend down the street. He’s getting a little old to hang out with the younger crowd. He would later tell us of this one house that he went up to, that his friend choose to skip. Robo when up, no problem. Knocked on the door, no problem. Got his treat, no problem.

What he didn’t realize was that 5 guys in Scream masks were silently lining up behind him. He said he turned around and about peed his pants. His friend had learned about that house last year and purposefully avoided it. He also equally as purposefully made sure Robo didn’t. Trick or treat indeed.

Later, when we were being told this story, his Mom asked him in a teasing voice, “Were you scared honey?”. We expected him to get all cool and say how he was cool. But he just looked back her and said, “Um, Yeah!”

Meanwhile, we’re still making the rounds and Bear is getting into it. He saw a kid in a scary costume and wasn’t scared himself, but played along like we do when we play monster at home. We walked down the block with him going, “Ahhh monster. Go away monster. Ahhh, it’s going to eat me. Run away, Run away.”

When we got back we found the teens in the living room sitting around having a sing along with the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode CD. Yes, that show had a musical episode, and yes, they brought out a soundtrack CD of it.

Even though they had pretty full sacks of candy at that point, we still had one more destination. Grandma’s house. She lives across town from us, but she has special treats for her special people (who are her grandkids and the kids she does daycare for). Really BIG Halloween treats. So we made the stop and hung out for a bit while some of the daycare friends showed up in their costumes. Even daddy got a treat leaving with a couple bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

When we got back home we let the teens go down the block to hit a couple of houses. Most people aren’t impressed with older trick-or-treaters. There seems to be an unwritten etiquette rule that says at a certain height you’re not a legit trick-or-treater, you’re a parasite just in it for the candy (like the little kids have some more noble reason to go door to door). Kitten said one house even said, “Hey wait a minute, aren’t you guys old enough to vote?”

It was tough getting wound up kids to bed---it was even harder getting them up the next morning. We’ll be recovering till the weekend, I’m sure. The wife spent some time the next day separating the hard candy from the chocolate. She does this because if you leave them all together the hard candy, like sweet tarts and such, permeate the wrapper and ruin the taste of the chocolate.

Why should she care, you ask. Is she that concerned about the delicate palates of our younglings? Nope, it’s because she’ll be taking her duty from their haul. This is a life lesson, children. No such thing as a free lunch. We took you out, so we get our cut. That’s the way the world works. Enjoy your 80% and be happy.

Death and taxes. That’s what this holiday is about at our house.