We started with hats and purple hair several days early. What’s this year except a constant Halloween and scary nightmares every day? Even the home stores were emptied of witches, goblins and faux Thanksgiving turkeys a few weeks ago – on to Christmas, on to 2021. We can’t get there fast enough.
For many people, the neighborhood’s boundaries are the farthest journey they’ve taken since spring. Fortunately this one is a community that goes all out on holiday decorations. The “gold medal” always is a front yard five minutes away – these friends make holidays a community event and preside over it with childlike glee. This year the assortment is mostly creepy skeletons, hovering ghosts, cackling witches, toothy monsters and eerie piped-in sounds. Yet it’s oddly comforting because, unlike the nightly news, this noisy frenzy is all pretend. I journey down there every day for a heavy infusion of humorous horror, an antidote for the real dragons we’re experiencing daily in a constant barrage of real-life, “never-more” forms.
The toddlers and preschoolers started about 5:30 pm tonight. We had dutifully pre-packaged each individual handout and left them out more than 6 feet away on the steps or sidewalk tables, but it was hard to resist not stepping outside to witness an occasional “trick or treat” from a safe perch up on the porch. This year’s costumes were more fun than frightening. Cherubs in pumpkin suits, little girls in light blue “Frozen” dresses. Magic wands and chunky little Spidermen. Parents were enjoying it as much as their kids. It was as if we were all let out for one last evening blast of fun before the next phase – restricted by winter weather – will shut us back indoors.
Families and friends cruised around in small, safe “bubbles,” armed with strollers, coffee mugs and beer cans. Everyone was crazy to get outside! I counted two or three times as many people showing up this year as last, and candy supplies ran out early.
I put on my witch’s hat and mask (coronavirus-style) to greet them, and later took my own walk around the ‘hood. At the large sand-red house with a wrap-around porch, a haunted house awaited behind ghostly draped sheets. Fifteen kids were eagerly waiting in line (oops, not socially distanced). Around the corner, eerie sounds and fake smoke created a fake-creepy atmosphere with floating ghosts projected on the side of the house next door. At the previously mentioned yard full of humorous horror, my friends presided over the fun like Santa and Mrs. Claus (wrong season, but they’ll be back then, too.) Here and there entire families hosted from their porches to welcome trick or treaters, or simply chat across gates and bannisters with passing friends after a too-long break in the neighborhood social calendar. While candy-seeking family groups flooded the sidewalks, I enjoyed my Halloween 2020 journey at a safe distance from the middle of the street.
Pumpkin and ghost lights out, a bright and rare “blue moon” up in the sky, and in a few hours, daylight savings ends at 2 am. Drizzle and a cold front are forecast tomorrow on the first day of November. Darkness will descend far too early for the next few months, and days will be shorter but feel much longer. On this Halloween, there is breathless, nagging fear of the worst horror possibly yet to come in the form of Election Day in just three days.
My customized and personalized course in “Mastering Survival” tells me it’s a good year to put up the Christmas decorations six weeks months early and hasten in a more optimistic “season of light.”
