Alice's Book of Me: Week 9: Halloween

This week’s (Week 9) prompt is Halloween

Have you ever participated in a Halloween event?
When was it?
Where was it?
What did you dress as?
Trick or treat?

To me, “Halloween event” refers to any Halloween-related activity, so here goes my remembrances of “Halloween events” in my lifetime.

I don’t remember much about trick-or-treating in my youth. What I do remember is having store-bought masks. No costumes—just the masks. They were difficult to see out of, the eye holes never quite lined up with my eyes.

Other events I can barely recall include a Halloween party given by one of the neighbors when I was probably 11 or so. I don’t remember the party itself, but I do remember the peeled grapes/eyeballs and the spaghetti noodles/brains. That was my first experience with those, and it did gross me out. I think the party was held in her basement, I remember it being pretty dark and feeling these gross things.

My parents put the ka-bosh on trick or treating when we entered high school. But, we were given the opportunity to “Trick or Treat for UNICEF” for my first non-trick or treating year. We got these little cardboard containers, seems like they were in the shape of a small milk carton. We’d go door to door and say “Trick or Treat for UNICEF.” I don’t remember having to explain to the people what UNICEF was, so there may have been some pre-publicity with this. People would put some pennies into the carton, and also give us some candy as well, so we did get our trick or treating in anyway. The next day the cartons full of change were taken back to school and turned in. I think I did this for a couple of years, until I felt like I was too old to trick or treat for any cause.

As a mother, one of the rules we instituted in our family was “no trick or treating until age 2.” Of course the kids were too young at age 2 to really understand what trick or treating was, at least until they had visited a few houses and realized that by wearing a silly costume and saying these magic words, candy would be dropped into their little plastic buckets. I remember the coaching of the kids to get them to say “Trick or Treat” when they could barely talk. Most of the time they froze up when it was time to actually use the phrase, and no amount of coaching would get them to say it. Naturally they got very good at it as they grew older.

Pumpkin Party

The BIG traditional Halloween event in our family began in 1995. It started with our second oldest daughter, who had had a Halloween party the year before with her husband and some friends. They had shared a potluck dinner and carved pumpkins. When they were done with the carving, tea candles were inserted into the pumpkins, the lights were turned out, and son-in-law took pictures of these scary-looking jack-o-lanterns. When they showed us the pictures from this party, we thought this looked like something fun that the rest of our family would enjoy, so Halloween 1995 we began a tradition that has lasted for 18 years and shows no signs of dying any time soon.

Food's on!

We started out with 6 children, two sons-in-law, two granddaughters, a boyfriend (who became a son-in-law about 6 months later), a brother & sister-in-law. While the six children have remained the same number-wise, we’ve added a few more sons-in-law along the way, and are now up to 13 grandchildren. The premise is the same: Share a potluck dinner, visit, carve pumpkins, take pictures of the finished projects, and for the children—showing off the Halloween costumes.