Through the years I can see my perspective of Halloween changing. There's the innocent youth phase that progresses into the "I want to be cool" teen phase, which moves on to "Any excuse for a party" young adult time, and then a major shift when I became a parent.
My earliest memory of Halloween is of my sister Mary and I both dressed as devils and going trick or treating. Such excitement! Lots of walking rewarded with lots of candy.
That devil costume must've been in my subconscious memory when decades later I sewed my one-year old son a devil Halloween costume.
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| Ryan 1992 |
As a kid, Halloween was all about the costume and the candy. What fun to dump out your pillowcase at the end of a hard night's trick 'r treating and dig through the spoils like it was treasure. Sometimes we would find a piece of fruit that had been deposited in our bags by some well-meaning adult. We weren't allowed to eat it in case the well-meaning adult was actually a creep who put needles in fruit. With all that scrumptious candy though, we really didn't mind tossing out the non-candy items.
There was always the worry about the weather. In Texas you were equally likely to burn up in your costume as freeze to death. One year, there was the dreaded early cold snap and I was mortified that my Mom made me wear a coat over my costume!
It was tough when you reached the age where you were too old to trick or treat but still wanted to have some fun. I remember as a teen being asked to help out with a haunted house to benefit a charitable cause. That was perfect! I could have fun dressing up and scaring people under the guise of service.
Then the college years came along and the costumes got more creative and maybe a little raunchier and Halloween was more about partying. Sixth Street in Austin... need I say more? Early years of working at Shell brought more of the adult-themed parties.
And then a funny thing happened when I became a Mommy. Halloween veered full-circle back to the innocent kid-focus, although now it came with the added responsibility and practicality of trying to be a good parent.
I still cringe when I think of the year I was reading too many issues of "Parents Magazine" and I somehow thought giving out little boxes of raisins to the trick or treaters instead of candy was a good idea. Really?
When the kids were very young, Mom and Dad got to choose their costumes. I doubt 6-month-old Ryan would've come up with the Punk Rocker idea if it had been up to him.
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| Ryan 1991 |
Later on, we would make the trip to Party City, along with a million other people, and let the kids pick what they wanted to be.
Below, we see five-year-old Ryan in the pirate costume of his choosing while two-year-old Lexi wears a hand-me-down number from a friend and dreams of the day she has a say in her costume selection.
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| 1996 |
Finally, two years later, Lexi is pleased to be decked out in her store-bought Barbie Cheerleader costume and Ryan keeps getting scarier.
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| 1998 |
I remember Ryan being indignant that Halloween was not a school holiday. You see, homework was important in our house and he felt the pressure of getting his schoolwork done but still wanting to immerse himself in the fun of Halloween. In college, they call it Work Hard, Play Hard. Ryan learned it early on.
I think back to those Halloween evenings of getting home from work, rushing to put dinner on the table, insisting the kids eat a decent meal so that candy wasn't their dinner, getting those costumes on, finding batteries for the safety flashlights, spraying mosquito repellant, and all this before the quickly-approaching bewitching hour of darkness when trick or treating begins. What a contrast to when I was young and it seemed like I had to wait forever until it finally got dark and we could hit the streets for trick or treating.
The next thing I know, the kids are grown up and gone and I'm left with my memories of Halloween. The fun continues though. Our neighborhood has some amazingly decorated houses and we had some really cute trick or treaters come by. The elementary school across the street had a costume parade on Friday that I got to watch.
I got a little creative with my Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin.
And I still put out a wooden pumpkin decorated by a young Ryan to help me remember Halloweens Past.
