Wednesday, October 9, 2013
HALLOWEEN - LOVE IT OR HATE IT?
My birthday falls near the end of October, so when I was
young I loved Halloween. Every year my birthday party was a costume party. My
younger brother's birthday is also in October and we're only two years apart, so
Mom insisted that we celebrate with one big gathering of all our friends. Saved
her time, money and clean up. The family party was held separately and earlier
in the month and costumes weren't worn, much to the disappointment of my
cousins and me.
But for the kid party our friends came dressed as cowboys,
Indians, spacemen, fairies, and some things I'm not sure of. As the birthday
girl I reserved the privilege of being the one and only witch. When I was very
young I chose to be the ugly, wart covered kind. But as I got older and boys
started to interest me my witch got less warty and a bit slinkier. Back then (in
what my children refer to as the Dark Ages) no one dressed up as super heroes
other than Superman or Batman and no one ever thought of coming as some movie
star or sport figure. And the only monsters were the classic Frankenstein,
Dracula and The Mummy.
If the weather allowed we held the party outside. We jumped in
the leaves my dad had raked for that purpose, played Pin the Tail on the
Donkey, and blind man's bluff. We dunked for apples and ate hot dogs, potato
chips, and birthday cake. If Mother Nature refused to cooperate we moved inside
my parents' tiny house and proceeded to destroy it. Mom always prayed for good
weather.
When my two boys were young I tried to recreate the
sweetness of those Halloweens. But either my memories were flawed, times had
changed or my boys just weren't interested in good old fashioned fun. They
preferred rough and tumble games like laser tag and paint ball, and costumes
that featured fake blood and gore with body parts hanging or missing. Tricks
proved more irresistible than treats, especially to the neighbor boys.
I could live with the TP decorating my trees and having my
car picked up and turned sideways in the driveway. Even the condom (fortunately
unused) stretched over the front doorknob didn't sour me on Halloween. But did
you know that eggs tossed against wood siding or your car will eat off paint?
As the years went by Halloween turned from an anticipated
event to a dreaded one. The costumes seemed to get gorier and grosser, skimpier
and sexier. Then there was the whole tainted treats scare. Razor blades in
apples. LSD coated candy. Where I used to make homemade treats like caramel
apples and popcorn balls, now I was forced to buy prepackaged candy from the
store, and check each piece my boys brought home before they could eat it. Probably
not a totally bad thing since I could monitor how much they ate and when they
ate it. Yeah, right. The growing cynic in me wondered if the whole scare wasn't
just a promotional tool of the candy companies.
Once my boys outgrew the need to dress up in costume and go
out to terrorize the neighborhood under the guise of begging for candy,
Halloween slipped further down the list of my favorite holidays. Giving out
candy meant spending my afternoon and evening jumping up every few minutes to
answer the door. If I decided not to hand out the sweet stuff I risked having
my house egged, porch light broken or garbage strewn across the porch by angry
teenagers much too old to be out Trick or Treating.
Each year that passed whittled away at my affection for
Halloween. It got so the sight of ghosts, skeletons and monsters decorating the
stores made me cringe at the coming of that one night.
That's why I found it strange when I wrote my contemporary
romance MAGGIE UNDERCOVER I included a Halloween scene. In that scene the hero
takes his young daughter out to Trick or Treat and the heroine joins them. Writing
the scene brought back memories of taking my boys out as well as going out as a
child. It stirred my old love of dressing up and pretending to be someone or
something else for a short period of time and being rewarded for imagination
with sweet treats.
Available from Amazon & Smashwords for .99.
So while I still find myself less than fond of the Halloween
holiday, I cherish the memory of those past. The experiences I gained from them
stirred my creativity, shaped my imagination and helped develop me into the
writer I am today.
Hope you enjoy this coming Halloween!
Elysa
Elysa
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