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The days leading up to Halloween are an adjustment of both schedules and seasonal changes. We change our plans from going to the beach to attending school functions. Any course of study, hobby or workout regime whether personal or scholastic that has been put aside or ignored is now put back on the calendar. The hazy thick humid air turns clear and cool as the leaves on the trees turn from various shades of green to bold versions of orange, reds and gold shades. It’s as if all the trees are putting on a fashion show vying for your attention to be looked at just once more before they let loose their leaves and hold bare through the winter. And as if I was not paying attention enough – I start to notice the shortening of the days – a minute here – a minute there until it hits me when I feel tired that no it’s not ten o’clock at night – it’s only five fifteen!
If you don’t have to deal with going to school or getting your children back to school – you still cannot help but notice the shift in the atmosphere as all the kids disappear – from the stores, libraries, streets and parks. It’s a temporary hush. In the early fall – it’s almost eerie. Until late in the afternoon caravans of school busses unload the younger population back into the world.
Appetites change as well too. By the time mid September rolls around – for myself – I am sick of hotdogs, hamburgers, chicken or anything for that matter that is cooked on the grill. Whereas in the beginning of the summer – I always felt a little carcinogen on an over burnt piece of chicken was not only good for me but delicious. By September – seeing all the grilled foods at Labor Day picnics - I just turn my head away. It is no wonder that for nearly a week before October is about to begin – I always feel like I want to go on a diet – a healthy one – one that is good for me – one that I can actually live with and stick to. The reality is not that I am sick of food it’s the kind of food.
I start to hunger for soups, stews and anything roasted. Roasted chicken, potatoes, and carrots – I start to get a hunger for the taste of onions that are caramelized with the vegetables they are keeping company with on the baking pan in the oven. Autumn is the season to turn off the grills and light the oven.
Out of my closet comes the crock pot and in my head I get ideas of cooking and making mouthwatering meals – my creative juices start flowing and I start to get excited. I start to have fantasies of my family members sitting around the table saying, “yumm, ooohhhmmmm, this is goooooood”. One can dream.
Why do I get excited? I’ve asked myself this. I get excited because I can only cook one or two versions of about three things. By the time a new season is about to roll around I am out of ideas. And even if no one outwardly complains about having grilled chicken for the fourth time in the previous week – I can’t bring myself to make it. Inertia sets in when I prepare the same food over and over again day after day. I start to feel as if I am living in the movie “Groundhog Day”.
There are 365 days a year – six days a week in my family it is my job to have dinner of some kind planned or prepared. That’s 312 meals. Divide that by three and if you live in our home you will eat the same food approximately 104 times within a given twelve month period. We do eat together at the dinner table five nights a week. (I don’t do dinners anymore on Saturday nights unless I’m having a moment of temporary insanity which happens sometimes when my hormones shift and my maternal and wifely needs to fulfill my family is stronger than the desire to have the night off from cooking dinner). However – whether I cook the meal – bring home Chinese or let Mrs. Stouffer cook her lasagna for us – it is my job to plan, buy, prepare, and cook the meal.
Did I mention that I can only cook three things? If I’m lucky I have a fourth item up my sleeve that I can sometimes cook that I pull out once in a while – in case of emergency or just sheer luck that with the right ingredients, barometric pressure, phase of moon and the stars being aligned just right. But I don’t count it.
So as I finally get adjusted to our fall work and play schedule, adjust our menus which shift my chores around the house. I look forward to celebrating Halloween.
I absolutely love the Holiday Halloween. When I was a child and we went trick or treating - in our neighborhood the holiday was a level playing field. Unlike the disappointment and letdown of Christmas it did not matter which house was yours – everyone went knocking on the same doors and we basically received the same candy. Halloween was fun and it was something to look forward too. Our neighbors although not rich and mostly always struggling financially were very generous – and in most cases the only time I ever saw a lot of our neighbors was on Halloween night. In the old days Halloween was not just about knocking on doors and walking away with a piece of candy – in our neighborhood – many people invited you inside and actually offered treats. It was not uncommon say for someone to offer hot chocolate or a piece of cake. After so many years of trick or treating – you might not know exactly the name of the woman who lived in a house you were approaching but hoped she was giving out candy apples like she did in previous years. We had good memories and remembered the houses according to the treats. We remembered who gave away homemade cookies and who offered drinks such as apple cider. We received rolls of pennies, apples, nuts and my favorite – “almond joy”.
I dreaded the thought of ever being too old to go trick or treating. And as luck would have it – just when I was about the age of 12 when it was no longer cool to go out – It was me who took my baby sister trick or treating. And as she got older and started to get too cool to go out we were given young cousins to go trick or treating with.
With a few exceptions like having to work (which felt sacrilegious) – the only time I did not go trick-or-treating was when my son Michele was celebrating his first Halloween. He was only three months old – I sat him in his baby seat wearing an outfit that looked like a football uniform. I put a helmet on his head and eye shadow under his eyes and stuffed his shoulders with tissues to look like shoulder pads. I had a large bowl filled with my favorite candies (so I could sample the treats I wanted to give away). We waited anxiously for kiddies to come up to the door yelling “trick or treat”!!!
Sadly – at the time the area that we live was very rural – and the street out front was dark and the cars sped by too fast and there are no sidewalks. No amount of pumpkins, homemade scarecrow sitting on our front porch, lights, candles, or witches hanging in our trees could attract children. It would have been a very lonely and sad Halloween if it were not for my mom, and Aunt Gertie visiting with my then very young cousins (tweens) Allison and Artie. Yeah!!!! If not for family what would some of us do?
As far as family, when most of the year my family does not even talk to me – Halloween is the one holiday when my family puts our dysfunction aside. Who would know that on Halloween pasts while laughing and eating homemade soup – exchanging candy and drinking hot chocolate that certain members of that particular gathering were so mad at each other they would not have spit on each other if they were both on fire? Instead eating delicious soup – gathering of our kids and off to trick or treat we would go. Not just the kids – aunts, cousins, brother in laws. The whole clan who could make it would be there. It is always fun and something to look forward to.
I love Halloween. It’s the one time of year you can dress up and play pretend and its okay to dress up and play pretend. People go through all kinds of artistic endeavors to create their Halloween persona – it’s a time to be who you want to be or even face your fears.
Drag Queens love Halloween – they get to legitimately come out and dress in their finest without fear of anyone thinking anything is wrong. Have a fear of clowns? Dress up like one for Halloween. The old world pagan traditions used Halloween (the Eve of All Souls Day) – to dress up in the very things they were afraid of – ghosts, monsters etc….
And of course the best thing about being a parent of a cute little baby is how much power I had over decorating my sweet little babies – oh what fun I had creating costumes that were made from various pieces of material that were cut, sewn, or glued. I dressed my babies in costumes such as a rabbit, a lobster and even a chocolate chip cookie with a bite taken out. The fun was being as creative as I could, spend as little as possible and the reward and joy I would get would be when people would make such a fuss over how cute my kids were.
This period of time is short lived. Soon I had to surrender to the pull of the cheaply made store bought version of whatever costume my children would want to wear. Once my children started developing an opinion muscle – I had to eventually give in and let them dress up for Halloween the way they wanted. With the exception of the time my then six year old son wanted to be an “Alien Rapper” – I dressed him in jeans with a chain hanging, he wore an Alien mask and a black hooded sweat shirt which I ironed on the words “Alien Rapper” across the back. To my horror – during an indoor Halloween celebration for the kids at my church – a woman pulled me aside and pointed out to my son’s sweatshirt and said, “Look what that kid’s shirt says”!!! I looked and read to my disbelief the words “Alien Raper”.
Now the days of the Halloween season are bittersweet. The cool nights are a comfort after the hot summer. The holiday brings memories of the past and is a constant reminder of myself as I was young, my children when they were young and now – I am reminded of how lucky we are to have the life we live. This year is the first year our son was not with us for Halloween. And it’s because he was away at college. He is now a young adult and will choose how he celebrates. I look forward to full circle when he again joins the fold with perhaps his girlfriend, wife and someday his child as we eat hot soup and trick or treat together again. I know our days are numbered with the Halloweens left to trick or treat with our daughter who is now in high school.
But for now I relish in the current memory of making hot soup and going with my family to my husband’s brother’s house to eat a shared dinner of soup, salad and dessert. Followed by trick or treating in their neighborhood. The smell of wood burning, the crisp air, bright stars in the sky – the crunch of leaves on the ground as we walked from house to decorated house – having a wonderful conversation with my sister in law while we followed along watching and listening to our girls run with a crowd – of ghosts, cats, nurses, various monsters and kings amid other characters screaming and squealing. A fun and memorable night indeed to add to my memories of Halloweens that have passed.
Until later,
Marguerita Nanfara
aka Queen Daisy from Belgium
Until later,
Marguerita Nanfara
aka Queen Daisy from Belgium
