As a kid, Halloween was one of those holidays that we lived for. The air was chilly and crisp, the decorations went up, we spent too much time trying to scare the living daylights out of each other and ourselves with scary stories and cobweb decorations and bloody monster masks. I could dress up as anything I wanted, be anything I wanted. The rules were suspended, and we got to wander around the neighborhood after dark, stay up late, ask friends and strangers for all the candy we could carry in our bags, and eat Hershey bars and Smarties for dinner.
I feel the same kind of anticipation and excitement now that Helene is old enough to understand some of the specialness of Halloween. I knew that I wouldn't get to choose her costume any more - my girl has her opinions now. So when I first asked her, a couple of months ago, what she wanted to be, she said, "witch!" She'd been a witch last year, and we had books about witches. I suggested other things: she could be a cowgirl like Jessie in Toy Story, a pirate, or an astronaut. She could be anything. No, a witch, she kept saying. I enlisted my mom's help on a costume; she bought one, e-mailed me a photo, and I showed it to Helene. "Do you like the witch costume that Grandma found for you?" "I want to be a ghost. YOU can be a witch." No matter how many times I asked, she insisted that she wanted to be a ghost. I showed her pictures of Halloween ghosts in story books, and ghost decorations, and each time she said, yes, she wanted to be a ghost, like that. My mom bailed us out again, made her a ghost costume, a sleeveless white tunic, and a white hood, with a gas-station style nametag that said "GHOST" in case it was not obvious.
Over October, we carved three different jack o'lanterns, visited two pumpkin patches, and bought numerous small and large pumpkins and gourds for decorations. Enamored with the pumpkins, Helene would insist on bringing some of them into the house from the front steps almost every time we came home. She saw little ghost lights at a neighbor's house, and my mom bought some for her. We carved the final jack o'lantern, hung all the lights, and arranged the pumpkins on the front steps.
Yesterday, Halloween morning, Helene kept asking "Is it Halloween? Is it Halloween?" Yes it is, sweetheart. But you have to wait until after school to wear your costume. "There's my ghost costume!" she said excitedly.
Seth went to pick her up at school. He texted me: "Warning! She says she wants to be a witch." Well, kid, it's a good thing that your mama and Grandma Wanda think of these things, because there just happens to be an emergency backup witch costume in your size hanging in the basement. Apparently, she was quite upset at any suggestion that she be a ghost. What changed her mind so completely, I will never know.
She seemed tired and a bit listless when I got home. We made sure she had a snack, to stave off hunger or candy-induced mania, and then tried to get her ready to trick or treat. Suddenly, she didn't want to go. She wanted to open the orange Play Doh instead. And I found myself threatening my child that we were about to go trick or treating without her, actually having to CONVINCE her to GO GET LOADS OF CANDY FROM PEOPLE. Enough mentions of candy seemed to do the trick, and we costumed her up, and set out for a trip around the block.
Last year, her first year, it was pretty magical. We went early, on a sunny and warm evening, with two other kids of the same vintage. They did it all themselves, climbing the steps, knocking on the doors, even saying thank you. She wore her costume, including the hat, the entire time. She walked almost the whole way herself, clutching her hard-earned candy bag.
This year, I think she was a bit tired. She kept asking to be carried, didn't want to go up all of the stairs. When her jack o'lantern treat bucket banged on each wrought iron step, she would cry out "OW!" on the pumpkin's battered behalf. We didn't make plans to go with any other kids, so there was no one to egg her on. Her imagination has also grown, and she finds things scary now that she didn't before. She was not prepared for adults in costumes, the pirates and soldiers and Cruella deVilles and witches that we saw around the block. We had to walk with her up to all of the houses. We made our circuit of the block, and she was done, asked to go home.
I remembered that our neighbor across the street had specifically told us to come by. She's older, and I knew she'd lived in that house for a long time. She didn't have any decorations up, but was ready for us with a big bowl of candy. She gave Helene more candy than strictly necessary, and we started to talk. She told me how much she loves children, and seeing them in the neighborhood. She's lived in that house since she was eight years old, inherited it from her parents. Seth and Helene wandered off, but I kept talking. She wants to have all the kids over when the weather gets warm again, make ice cream in the back yard. I told her that sounded amazing. She told me (to my surprise) that there used to be a streetcar on our street, and she used to take it up to the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. She told me how the block used to be, with so many families and children, all over at each other's houses. And then there were some bad times, when people moved away, and there was crime, and no children. "But now, I get to see it a second time, all the children in the neighborhood," she said, as we watched groups of costumed kids laughing in the coming twilight. I could have talked to her forever, listening to the stories and the history of my street. I told her that I hoped we would talk again soon.
We headed home, turned on our lights and decorations, took off Helene's costume, turned up some Halloween tunes and got ready to hand out candy. We let Helene eat a fair amount of candy, but not too much. Then, the knocks came at the door, and handing out candy turned out to be the hit of the night. She wanted to hold the bowl, and dole out candy carefully into each waiting bag. We ended up sitting out on the front steps with glasses of wine, waiting for more kids to climb the steps. "What is she? What is he?" Helene asked of each costume, as she hand-picked special candy for each fireman, Wolverine, train engineer, Green Lantern, butterfly and princess. She delighted in looking at the costumes, at giving the candy out, at saying "Happy Halloween!"
Finally she started to fade, getting clumsy and weepy and indecisive with exhaustion, and we knew we had to turn out the lights and lock the door, because she would not let us hand out candy without her. She was sound asleep before I finished singing to her.
It wasn't what I'd imagined for her third Halloween. I thought she would be more interested in trick or treating. I wanted it to be as charming and new as it was last year. But the truth is that she wore her costume for less than an hour, that she had an unsightly fat lip and scrape on her chin from a fall on Sunday, that trick or treating was not the highlight, that we should have gone earlier when there was more light, that we should have gone with some other kids, and that she was a little scared by the whole thing. As a parent, it's hard to lower your expectations sometimes, and to not want so much for your kid's childhood to be exactly like yours, or exactly like some perfect imagining, because it's not going to be. It's hard to open up, and experience that magic that you're seeking in some other way than what you're looking for.
We had some moments last night that still give me high hopes for future magical Halloweens. We sat on our front porch and talked to all of our neighbors that came by, people that we got to know just a little bit better last night. Helene continued to be entranced by our lights and jack o'lanterns glowing in the cool October night, going down the steps periodically to examine them. The streetlamp across from us flickered eerily on and off, lending instant spookiness to the trickling parade of trick or treaters down our street. I got to know one special neighbor better, a piece of living history. And Helene delighted in making other kids happy giving them those tantalizing sweets in shiny foil packages, our porch light transforming them into mysterious, sparkling treasure, for just this one magic night.
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