Halloween – A Time for Nostalgia

I love Halloween and all that comes with it - bats flying from lamp posts, ghosts dangling from trees, and jack-o’-lanterns shining from doorsteps.

But as a baby boomer, whose children are now grown up, I realize it’s not as exciting as it used to be.   I’ve bought some pumpkins, and will stock up on candy next week, but my real enjoyment of the holiday comes through memories.

One of my earliest is dressing up as an “Indian” or Native American princess, at my house in South Dartmouth. My mother wasn’t a fancy seamstress, but she made me a dress out of sheets with a fringe on the bottom.  I wore some moccasins and beads, and sported two braids, and felt so exotic and pretty. I can still recall running around the house, impatient to get outside.

Though I don’t remember going out that particular night, I have some wonderful memories of trick-or-treating with my brothers and friends.  There were no accompanying parents those days, just a bunch of kids, and we weren’t afraid to go to anyone’s house.

I can remember going to an old rundown house a few blocks away and nervously waiting for someone to open the door.  It was an old woman who seemed thrilled that someone showed up.  She had made candied apples with hard sugary coating, and I think it was the first time I had seen that type of treat.  This was before the era of worrying about razor blades or poisoning in homemade treats, so the thought of having our parents check them never crossed our minds.  We just crunched into them as soon as we left, giving our molars the challenge of their lives.  It was well worth the effort – they were the best sweets we got that night.

I was a candy fanatic, with a mouth full of fillings to show for it, and I still remember our delirious state after coming home with our full trick-or-treat bags.  My older brothers usually came back with more, but I was always happy with my haul. We would sort out all our candy, proudly counting up the best treats – the Hershey bars, peanut butter cups and Nestle Crunches.  Then we would trade off the rejects – the black licorice and malt balls. After that, we would tear into it, and I think it took just a few days to demolish it all.

Years later, I can remember my own children repeating the same ritual.  And just like my childhood, our sons seemed to collect more than my daughter.  One year, however, my daughter claimed that her older brother had stolen some of her candy.  My husband and I had told him he was too old to go out trick-or-treating, so he had been stuck with eating leftovers from our supply.

We sat him down, told him to tell us the truth, and he denied the charges.  But we had a deadlock – my daughter had remembered all the quantities and types of her candy collection, and she insisted that some of her best “pieces” were missing.

What never crossed my mind was our Labrador retriever, who seemed to have an excessive amount of gas the next day.  While cleaning up the yard, I noticed some dog poop – a lot of it – near the border of the woods in our yard.  On a closer examination, it was filled with candy bar wrappers.  Somehow, our dog had managed to sneak by me, go to my daughter’s room, and get into her closet.  And well, for the rest of our story, we apologized to our son, and made sure our lab got a lot of “outside time” the next few days. 

Though my childhood memories focus on the candy side of the holiday, my recent memories involve the challenge of trying to come up with a costume for my children.  Like my mother, I didn’t sew very much, but I was determined to create something from scratch for my first-born.  I made a Dalmatian costume by putting big black polka dots on a white sweat suit, and adding black socks for ears.  It wasn’t elaborate, but he looked cute.

My husband came up with the best all-time costume the following year, however, by turning my son into a bulldozer driver.  He cut a hole in a large cardboard box, painted it yellow, and attached a cardboard plow to the front and black runners on the side.  My son stood in the hole and had rope suspenders that kept his truck from falling down.  Of course it poured that night, so the cardboard fell apart after visiting just four to five houses.  Still, my son was beaming in every picture we took.

We didn’t put all that much attention into our younger children’s costumes, but they seemed to have just as much fun. Our middle child wore the used Dalmatian costume a couple more times, and then went as Bat Man about five years in a row.  He loved wearing a hooded cape so the repetition was fine with him. Our daughter loved the chance to dress up in frilly and cool outfits.  She went as a ballerina, a hippie, and Princess Jasmine (I had resorted to store-bought costumes by then).   

The worst part of the whole holiday was the dreadful time when you got “too old” for trick-or-treating.  In my day, you were supposed to stop when you were 11 or 12, but my friend and I tried to push it by trick-or-treating in seventh grade.  We got together some last minute costumes, donning bright yellow foul weather gear with fishermen boots.  We were in hysterics going door to door, but a grumpy lady deflated our glee.  “I like to see the younger ones out,” she said, after reluctantly giving us some candy.   I think we still went to some houses after that, but we felt a little less cool.   

My children went through the same disappointment. I remember telling them to stop when they were 13 or 14 because I didn’t want them getting into trouble on the streets.   For a year or two, they made a haunted house in our garage and had a great time hanging bats and ghosts from the rafters and placing strobe lights all around them.  Then, they resigned themselves to giving out candy at the door.

Now our kids go to adult Halloween parties, and I think they have fun, but I just don’t think the experiences match those earlier times. So I hope that they can savor the same kind of memories I have.  

The thrill of dressing up, and having everyone ooh and aah over what you’re wearing.  The anticipation of visiting houses in the dark.  The fun of poking a flashlight in your pillowcase while you’re still out trick-or-treating to see all the different candy that you’ve got.

It’s all part of Halloween, and when you’re young, full of imagination, and your greatest pleasure is biting into some sugary treat, it just doesn’t get much better than that.