Fat Tuesday Sucks

Because you go out with your friends, hang out and relax, eat festive foods and generally make like a weekend, then you come home and it's TUESDAY.

Happy Holidays

I'll be offline for about a week so this is my last post for a while. Have a happy holiday everyone.

Trick Or Treat?

I've seen a lot of blogs lately about what's "ok" for kids to do on Halloween. There's quite a lot of talk about taking a child's candy as soon as they've gone trick-or-treating, to prevent them from gorging themselves sick on chocolate. Or of "trading" candy for toy bribes, or sometimes just throwing the loot away.

Now I understand what parents are afraid of, rotting teeth, obesity, sugar crazed brats. But for crying out loud it's HALLOWEEN. These precautions might make sense if you have a kid with allergies, or even a kid who's too little to understand trick-or-treating in the first place, otherwise it's just cruel. Way to ruin the fun. Nothing's wrong with a little gorging, the kid will gain a pound, make himself sick, and be unable to eat anything the day after anyhow, balancing the whole sugar gain. Or maybe not, but at any rate it balances in the end and one day of celebration isn't going to make a lifetime habit of overindulgence.

Then there's the question of "trick." I've read a ton of comments about those damned vandals, throwing eggs which create permanent property damage, and other sorts of Halloween tricks that bring no end of nuisance and hurt feelings. The question of whether it should be allowed is sort of irrelevant, more important is why it's happening in the first place.

When I was a kid, the charm of Halloween had nothing to do with tricks, or even really the treats. It was all about the feeling in the air. There was a feeling that anything could happen, ghosts could come up behind you, you could discover an ability for magic, maybe meet a vampire. And all that mystery was all the more delicious because I was young enough to feel secure, safe, automatically protected. I was ready to witness these things because I knew I'd survive them, any other consequences just added to the sense of yummy danger. The idea that someone out there was up to mischief made it all the more fascinating, but I myself never had the temptation to throw eggs or toilet paper, or smash pumpkins on the street.

Why didn't I have the temptation? Because I continued trick-or-treating until I was fifteen or sixteen, in other words, far too old. To my mind, that's the real trick: teenagers. I could (but won't at this time) talk for pages about the problem of teenagers in general, a created class of people that is neither here nor there, and utterly confused because of it. Instead I'd like to talk about this chunk of people on Halloween.

When a five or six year old says: trick or treat? he probably doesn't realize what he's saying. Even as we get older we don't really consider that phrase a negotiation, and consciously it's not. On the other hand when a sixteen-year-old comes to your door with a plastic pumpkin and says "trick-or-treat" most people will give them the: "aren't you too old for this" glare, and in a way, it's these skeptical neighbors that are pushing the trick-or-treat towards the "trick" half. I was encouraged to stop trick-or-treating when I was about twelve, not that I did. You don't even have to tell them they're too old, a child realizes this the first time he or she is asked, "are you going trick-or-treating this year?" as though it were an option, as though the possibility not to go actually exists. We expect these kids to grow up in the course of a year, but they still want to dress in costumes, want to be a part of Halloween magic like they always have been. So when we tell them they're too old, and provide them no other way to be a part, they find their own way. Somehow we are still surprised to when our trees are covered in soggy toilet paper, or the paint job on our cars are ruined by eggs.

I'm not saying vandalism is ok, but aren't we kind of asking for it when we, as a society, tell kids we aren't going to give them the "treat" any longer? Personally, when I have kids, and they start to indicate a reluctance to go trick-or-treating, I'm going to buy them a whole bundle of TP. If they're going to go out playing tricks, I'd rather it be the huge nuisance kind than the permanent property damage kind.

Happy Halloween

Ever since I was a little kid, Halloween has been my favorite holiday. I'm not sure why, it wasn't the candy, which always struck me as a bit anti-climactic, I think it was just the joy of pretend, the one day of the year that EVERYONE has to pretend to be something else. Preferably something spooky. Of course I've gotten a bit lame lately, but it's not my fault. Since I've been at that media conference for the last three years I've consistently missed, if not the actual day, the weekend where everyone has the big Halloween party, which is a real bummer for someone who thinks Christmas is the second rate holiday. This year I actually managed to get some Halloween activities in, and it took me unprepared. The weekend before last there was a Halloween party which was supposedly really a party for the pagan holiday that inspired Halloween (don't ask me what it's called I don't remember), but mostly it just felt like Halloween. Although it wasn't your typical party by any means (one of the reasons it was cool) there was a drum circle, and belly dancing and a friend of the hostess doing henna tattoos. I love Henna.

Last weekend of course I was in DC for the conference, but I was surprised to get a little taste of Halloween even there. The zoo was all set up for their version of "Boo at the Zoo" (does every zoo do Boo at the Zoo?) so we got to see some fun spooky decorations. Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of my favorite decor: hanging from the long metal bridge that takes you to the main part of the zoo were a line of ghosts, swinging in the wind. Presumably they were the souls of people that had been hung, but since the Boo @ Zoo thing is geared partially towards kids I'm thinking maybe I'm not supposed to think that deeply.

I got back in town about 4pm Sunday afternoon and at 7pm Matt and I went into Lakewood to visit friends and carve pumpkins. Much fun holiday spirit (or spirits) was had by all. My big brother had decked out the house to look quite spooky, much better than many of the houses on the block, with high class bones that actually kinda feel like dried out bones, like driftwood from Lake Erie. Meanwhile Kim is still hard at work in the garden (even though it's freaking October) which is looking cooler every time I go over. I'm sure this wasn't her intent, but the mass of plants and colors went much better with the haunted feel than the boring grass lawns lining the rest of the street. Brian (brother), Amy, Matt and I all carved pumpkins, but Kim didn't get the chance between gardening and roasting pumpkin seeds.

And tonight we all went over to Kim and Brian's for trick or treating. Amy handed out the candy, apparently with the wisdom of Solomon since we ran out almost exactly at 7:55 (trick-or-treating ends at 8). As an added bonus, the garden kept the kiddies from stomping through the front yard. Unfortunately Kim had volleyball and missed out on most of it, Matt had to stay inside and get work done, but it was still a fun time. Lots of cute costumes and only a few crying children. Scary award goes to the toddler in the Elmo costume... carrying an axe.
I'll post pictures of costumes and pumpkins etc. as I get them...