Why I Love Halloween

Halloween is a chance to cut loose from our selves, to dress as our fantasies, use our imaginations as far as our budgets and skills allow.

It's a chance to go to parties to show off as someone else who is also us. It's an excuse to eat lots of candy and drink cider.

It's an entree into showing off the esoteric workings of our minds without being cocktail party judged. It's a reason to show off our beautiful bodies, our literate minds, creative skills, our sense or nonsense of humor. We can be as provocative as ridiculous as we want and unless it is inappropriate to the event, there's no foul. And even then, you're behind the mask.

You're out there.

I've loved Halloween from the time I stopped going out on Fright Night as a teen and volunteered to stay home to pass out the candy. That was the first year I dressed all in black. I put the vacuum cleaner in the entry hall dressed as a ghost to be turned on whenever the Trick or Treaters approached the house.
Noisy but fun.

The best part of that evening came during a lull. As I paced about waiting for the next victims, I wandered into the dining room. Lit only by the street light through the drapes, there was just enough light to see a huge dust bunny on the curtain rod. I reached up and grasped it with my gloved hand when the dust ball moved. It wasn't a bunny; it was a bat on Halloween night. A bat in our house. YES! I loved Halloween.

A few years later, now married, I spent hours making a Halloween tape of music and scary noises. Put the speakers in the window and played it through the hours. Lights were off except for the pumpkin candles. You could hear it up and down the street. Spooky. I loved Halloween.

In the following years we added several scary items including a spider on a tiny pulley. As folks climbed the few steps, spidey dropped down to face level. Screaming ensued. I am captivated by this holiday.

The year the front steps happened to be out for replacement, I sat on hay bales behind the large tree next to the entry walk. Of course I was dressed in my Halloween black. All I said was "Good Evening" as I proffered the basket for candy selection. More startled screaming. More inward grins.

Now here's where I had a problem. Kids started coming to the neighborhood by the vanload. We no longer knew the goblins, witches, princesses who rang our bell. Something was changing and by the following year I only liked Halloween.

The trick was on me that next year. Front steps installed, candy basket in the foyer, we were in the kitchen having dinner when someone opened the front door and stole the basket with the candy. Screams by wife about the theft. Okay, there was more candy in the secret hiding place known only to She-Who-Buys-the- Candy-and-Hides-It-to-Prevent-Sugar-Overload-by-Family-Members. The concealed candy was broken out and another basket put into service while I locked the front door.

The front doorbell stopped working on Halloween day the following year. Since the door knocker was too high for the little ones to reach, there was a last minute decision to have Herself sit on the front porch in witchy cape with one of the dogs dressed in my sweater, tie and baseball hat.
The plan worked.

No candy was stolen. But, you might ask, what about the screaming? The elected dog was our very large unclipped black Poodle who sat mannequin-like and looked every inch like a 78 lb boy in a dog suit. Here come the screams. The little kids knew this was a dog. But the teens tried to out-think their eyes. The screaming began when Zeke moved his head to look at them. And not just screaming...actually running away. This was Fright Night at its finest. We were in love again.

The years have passed. The doorbell was fixed. The Samoyed ratted out her mom's secret stash to me. And both Murphy and Zeke are gone. The Labradoodle is in training on Halloween nights now but only works for an unhealthy share of peanut butter cups. I am relegated to the set up of lighted pumpkins, bats and spiders. But the screams will echo through the night soon.

We love Halloween.