Halloween

Happy Halloween! What fun that it lands on a Friday this year. I miss the excitement of having young children on Halloween. It was always such a special time. Weeks of planning would go into what to wear. We were not big on purchasing costumes, with the exception of the Ninja Turtle foam shell and cheap nylon mask Carol Ann had to have one year. Typically we dug through the dress-up suitcase, a huge brown leather valise, probably purchased at a garage sale, full of old prom and bridesmaid dresses, high heels, purses, shawls and jewelry with a few tiaras thrown in for good measure. After the homemade red dotted swiss clown costume was retired, Courtney liked to be either a witch or a gypsy. One year she went to a party as a witch with green skin, a fake hooked rubber nose complete with wart, and in lieu of a broom carried my old Hoover vacuum. She was a hit.

Carol Ann wore the same clown costume but once she outgrew it she was a bit more “out there” in her costume choices. There was the Ninja Turtle year, but it was followed by the classic Bride of the Energizer Bunny. This ensemble included a peach colored bridesmaid’s dress pinned and stitched to somewhat fit her, or at least ensure she didn’t trip over it, a wedding veil and a toy drum. When I tried do dissuade her from carrying the drum I was told it was the integral part of the costume. My child. That imagination and creativity served her well in her teen years when coming up with ways to sneak out of the house.

I always tried to make Halloween special. I decorated the house and cooked special dinners which were consumed in record time so trick-or-treating could commence. My “specialty” for years was a meal consisting of hamburger patties with melted jack-o-lantern shaped cheese slices and ghost toast, bread cut with a ghost shaped cookie cutter, buttered and toasted under the broiler. Gourmet fare to be sure.

We always carved pumpkins to display on the front porch and they were usually rotted heaps of orange gunk before October 31^st. My girls both excelled, with a slight bit of help from parents, at the elementary school annual pumpkin decorating contest. Some of the award winning designs included Marge Simpson, Mrs. Potts and Chip (from Beauty and the Beast), Cinderella’s coach – complete with Barbie dressed in her finest ball gown, and Raggedy Ann. We took this contest a little too seriously.

My husband Frank and Uncle Steve were in charge of seeing the children safely through the neighborhood to beg for candy, I mean, trick-or-treat. I stayed home to answer our doorbell and pass out treats to little monsters and ballerinas and ghouls. At the end of the evening sacks full of candy were dumped on the floor and the hauls compared by the girls and inspected by the paranoid mother. The oddest thing ever garnered was a plastic container of McDonald’s pancake syrup. Seriously. When the girls were finally asleep I would help myself to mini Snickers bars and small yellow packages of peanut M&Ms. Yum.

Perhaps the best Halloween ever was the year Carol Ann was released from the hospital with Dr. Boris’ permission to go trick-or-treating. She was three years old and we had just spent ten days in Pediatric ICU battling spinal meningitis, which we thought would take her from us. We went from a healthy child with the sniffles to almost losing her within the span of a few hours. Even after we were told she would survive we still faced the possibility of brain damage or loss of sight and/or hearing. Leaving the hospital with a healthy child was a miracle. Participating in our Halloween celebration a few days later was the normalcy that helped to get our traumatized family back on track. There’s not been a Halloween since that I don’t recall that episode in our lives and give thanks for my beautiful, perfect daughter.

Happy Halloween.