At the age of 38, I am about to have my very first experience of Trick or Treating. Even though Matthew is already 7, we have so far managed to avoid the whole scenario, by claiming he was too young, or by being away over the midterm break. But this year, the boys are both old enough to know all about it, to assume they will be going out and receiving vast quantities of sweets and we are here for the week off. So, that's that.When we first lived in Ireland, we were surprised by how big a deal Halloween was. Unless I was extremely unobservant at the time, I don't remember any houses in England being decorated at the start of October in the lead up to Halloween. I don't really remember shops or cafes being done up either. I may be completely wrong about this - it is worth pointing out that we didn't have kids then, so the whole thing would have potentially passed me by. It's amazing how differently you end up seeing the world when you keep having to interpret it for sharp eyed, inquisitive little boys. So perhaps there was a Halloween buzz in the UK, or maybe there is more so now as American TV culture is increasingly everywhere. I certainly don't remember it even being mentioned in Holland.
But over here, it is EVERYWHERE! There are loads of houses on our road that are draped in cobwebs and have skeletons hanging from the doorposts. In one particularly tasteful case, there are severed limbs poking out of the letter box. Yesterday, heading into a cafe, a massive spider swung towards me as I went in - and skeletons leered at us from the counter as we sipped our drinks.
We have run out of sweets every year - heaps of kids come to the door! I always insist on knowing who is looking after them before I give them the sweets; you'd be surprised how many quite young kids are going house to house in the dark, relatively unsupervised. It's always a bit of a shock to open the door to a green faced zombie or a pale vampire! Especially one that is high on sugar and roaring 'TRICK OR TREAT' at you.
Certainly, the haul of sweets is all that the kids are thinking about! They have buckets ready for Thursday and are really excited. It will be the one time that getting them out for a walk round the estate really won't be an issue, compared to the battle on a lovely sunny day when Andy and I feel we could all do with some fresh air and have to bribe and cajole them out the door. But a walk in the cold, dark October evening? Let's go...
They seem quite taken with the decorations all over the place and were disappointed that we weren't going to decorate our house. Apart from the fact that it would seem like a bit of a waste of money to me, I really wasn't keen to decorate the house. Although at least I can leave those cobwebs for another while - you know, those real actual ones that I didn't pay for. I tried to explain to Matthew that we decorate the house for things we want to celebrate, like birthdays and Christmas. But Halloween is really about scary things and we don't want to celebrate being scared really.... He was a bit nonplussed and I think he thought I was just making up a random answer. Well, I was... But it's true really!
I am certainly not squeamish about scary things - one of my favourite tv programmes is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is wall to wall demons and goblins. And I am a huge Harry Potter fan. Yet, something about this full on explosion of witches and skeletons is very off putting and I find myself a bit uncomfortable with it.
Perhaps it's because of the kids. It's one thing for me to watch Buffy or read Harry Potter and enjoy the battle of good vs evil. But here it seems it's just about 'the evil'. We spent a good portion of the morning looking for costumes for the boys and every shop had the option of: skeletons, witches, devils or vampires. Where were the cowboys? Or the astronauts? Why did everything have to be so icky?
Plenty of people see it as harmless fun and really don't see why there would be a problem with dressing a kid up as a demon or a ghost. Perhaps it depends on your wider belief system and whether or not you ascribe any truth to the concept of the supernatural. If you don't believe there is such a thing as devils, then it amounts to the same thing as dressing up as a smurf, I suppose - 2 things that don't exist.
I know of one family whose child was in Crumlin Children's Hospital for many months as he battled cancer. He eventually made a great recovery. While they were there, Halloween came around and they were horrified with the gruesome decorations that went up. They felt that putting up decorations of skulls and ghouls - things effectively associated with death - in a ward where children were genuinely fighting for survival, was contradictory and in poor taste. I don't know to what extent they actually felt the images would have a wider or negative impact on the children, but they certainly felt it was inappropriate and complained to hospital management. They were heard, but the hospital management's view was that they felt it was important to keep the kids connected to what was going on in the outside world as they were stuck in the ward, missing out on all that their friends and classmates were experiencing. I can see both points of view, but I tend to side with the family. I am sure they could have found friendly pumpkin decorations rather than going for the macabre.
The boys were keen to be ghosts and I had more or less caved and was going to cut up a sheet and paint their faces white. But I wasn't happy with it - I just don't see the attraction or need for them to dress up as something linked to death. That may seem hyperbolic and over-dramatic on my part - but there you go. I should of course have been the ultimate Pinterest Mum and run up a home made costume or two, but the last time I used a sewing machine, it caught fire. And there was no Buffy-like demonic involvement - that's just how bad I am at sewing. Eventually, we found one shop that had a brilliant range of all kinds of costumes and I am pleased to report that I will be taking Finn McMissile and a Ninja Trick or Treating on Thursday.
Of course the truly frightening thing about Halloween is that once it's over, it genuinely won't be long until those same houses that are now draped in cobwebs and pumpkins, will start uncoiling the flashing lights and the whole street will turn into a Christmas disco wonderland. Then it will be time to make the lists and get on with the Christmas shopping. Now that's scary...
