Hallowon't

A million reasons to skip it

from Grandpa’s Witched-Up Christmas by James Flora

I am skipping Halloween this year for the first time in forever. Well, not technically skipping it, but rather shutting my door to the trick or treaters and hiding out. Without even touching on the national and international chaos swirling around in the collective conscious, the reasons why are multifold and years in the making.

My husband had a Halloween party to attend this past weekend that was Disney-themed. My husband is decidedly anti-Disney, partly in content but mostly in disdain of the Walt Disney Corp. To honor the host, he decided on being the 1960s Disney version of Davy Crockett. I went as the bear he “kilt” when he was only three. As we drove to the event, it became more and more apparent that the party full of millennials we were about to descend on would probably not get the joke at all. To make matters even worse, my low-fi khaki work shirt and bear ears costume more closely resembled John Candy in Spaceballs than a Tennessee woods animal. The party was fabulous with costumes, decorations, and themed food; in the end, it didn’t matter anyway. However, seeing all the details at the party reminded me of the Halloween bash I'd thrown for two decades. How much I loved it, and how much work it was.

As the mother of an only child, I never wanted him to be alone at Halloween. From day one, I cultivated our house as the place to be on Halloween, so he always had a small army of friends to Trick or Treat with. I tried to make it fun for the parents, and year after year, it was. As my son got older, he insisted on cutting 1) girls and 2) parents, and that slowly whittled it down to nearly nothing by senior year. I know we both have the best memories of those nights, but 20 years of hauling decorations from the attic, making chili, corralling kids, and cleaning up has taken its toll.

Needless to say, I’m tired. I don’t have a child here anymore to worry about making life magical for, so I’d rather have a few drinks and watch Fright Night with my sister than make an effort. Plus, Halloween has become decidedly gluttonous and disposable, as evidenced by the suburban yards around my house. Believe me, I was one of the first to pounce on the plastic skeleton bandwagon years ago, but now, people have full-blown animatronics, most of which are horrifying and totally age-inappropriate for children actually trick or treating.

They scare the shit out of me, and I’m old.

Lastly, I’m so focused that I no longer have time for fun. Seriously, tell that to college freshman Burgin, who spent Halloween night roaming Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, doing various illegal things and probably didn’t get back to the dorm until four the next morning. But who cares about her? That chick failed Art History 101. I’m more worried about 10-year-old Burgin, who didn’t have cable and took every babysitting job she could to watch the Thriller video on someone else’s TV. Or 20-something Burgin, who helped man the arm of the giant skeleton for the NYC Village Halloween Parade in the 1990s. Or mom Burgin, who handmade every Halloween costume for her son just like her mom did before her. I didn’t quite have the guts to do the full-on witch my mother perfected during our elementary and high school years. She gifted me the black cape she wore with green face paint thinking I was her natural predecessor. Alas, the childhood trauma of being the daughter of the green-faced demon who flies screeching into her child’s classroom every Halloween was too much.

I don't want to let those versions of myself (or my mom) down but our neighborhood has become so Halloween-famous that kids from all over mini-van in for the fantastic handmade haunted house the next street over. And candy is expensive. Everybody does it better than me now anyways, and I probably have a paper to write. Maybe next year, when the holiday winds up on the weekend, I’ll throw a real grownup party, but for now, I’m hanging up my BARF ears and sitting this one out. If you need me, I’ll be out back, eating popcorn and watching Roddy McDowall kill a vampire.

And saving my energy for Christmas.