Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Halloween Then and Now

Halloween season is definitely upon us. We are seeing more and more decorations in our neighborhood which makes our family walks even more entertaining. Here is one of Paul's favorites - the eye moves back and forth! We're anxiously waiting for the inflatable pumpkin-holding dinosaur to get put up. That is his absolute favorite!


At the beginning of September he told us "it's almost Halloween because next month is October." We had to explain that it was 50+ days away, so a lifetime away in the mind of a 4yo! It probably didn't help that I got his Halloween costume so early but with all the supply chain disruptions, I wanted to make sure we got his costume since he felt strongly about being Chase from Paw Patrol. 

Admittedly, before having kids, I was kind of totally a Halloween grinch. I handed out candy when I lived with Phil but I didn't love the holiday as an adult as costumes aren't my thing. But I'm all in on the holiday now that I have young kids who are excited about the holiday. Last week The Mom Hour had a special episode about celebrating Halloween as a parent. I enjoyed the conversation and it made me think about my Halloweens as a child and how I approach the holiday as a parent. So here is a reflection of Halloweens past, present, and future!

What do you remember from Halloweens as a child

- I have great memories of carving pumpkins and roasting the seeds. This was before the days of stencils for pumpkin carving so we did very primitive carvings - picture triangles for the nose, jagged-tooth grins, circlish eyes, etc. 

- My mom had a collection of costumes to choose from and many were sewed by her. I remember having colored stuff to spray in our hair and face paint - which are 2 things I am pretty sure I'm a hard no on as an admittedly not-very-fun parent. Ha. One thing that really limited the coolness of our costumes was the weather! I remember many Halloweens where we had to trick or treat in winter jackets so our costumes were hard to see!

- I grew up in a tiny town of 500 people so I was able to trick or treat with friends at a younger age, but I don't know what age that started. The street I lived on was a good one to trick or treat on, but I do not recall getting an entire candy bar at a house. That is something that happened at multiple houses where we trick or treated last year! In my hometown and in Minneapolis, trick or treating happens on the 31st. I know in some areas it's done on the Saturday before Halloween or something like that, but it's always on the 31st in this region of the country it seems. One of my favorite parts of Halloween night was sorting by candy by type and trading with my older sister. And off-loading all the coconut candy on my coconut-loving mom. We still keep the almond joys and mounds that the boys receive for her!

What has your adjustment to Halloween as a parent been like?

- I've been pretty low key about Halloween since becoming a parent. I bought a cheap $10 costume for Paul's first Halloween which Will wore last year. And then I bought a dino costume in 2020 that Paul opted to wear 2 years in a row, and wore a ton of other times. Paul wore a hand-me-down duck costume in 2019 and Will is going to wear a hand-me-down dog costume this year. So we've used a mix of hand-me-downs and new costumes. Hopefully Will is interested in wearing the dino costume next year. I'm happy to buy second-hand costumes and have sold costumes on Facebook. 

Hedgehog Will and Dino Paul, 2021
Dino Paul 2020
Duck Paul, 2019


Hedgehog Paul, 2018
- We've had a tradition of hosting a pumpkin carving party that pre-dates becoming parents. We hosted our first party in October of 2014. We had something like 5 couples/families at the first party but now it's just our family and another family. We were able to maintain this tradition through the pandemic as the other family goes to the same daycare so we were in the same immunity bubble. We only carve one pumpkin as a family. I scrape out the guts, which I find oddly satisfying, and Phil usually does the carving. We almost always have a cat-themed pumpkin. I usually made a soup or chili and I used to make a fall-themed dessert but now we just enjoy candy for dessert to keep things simple.

I think ours was the ghost. We must not have had a cat stencil that year!

Paul and our amigos!
- My decorating game is non-existent. I got away with that until this year when Paul said, "when are we taking out our Halloween decorations?" I had to explain that we don't have any decorations but that I would start to build an inventory of Halloween decorations. We started small/easy with some spider lights for our fireplace mantel. They do provide a nice, warm glow!


- What I love most is - unsurprisingly to people who know me well - our Halloween/fall book collection! These books are only out during the month of October! My favorites are Pumpkin Soup (this stays out through November since it's more of a fall book), Room on the Broom, and Little Blue Truck Halloween. We have about 8 books total and I'd like to add to this collection! 

What are your Halloween traditions
- I've mentioned pumpkin carving and bringing out our Halloween books already. One new thing we are trying this year is a evening pumpkin event at the zoo. They have lots of lit up pumpkins along the walking paths. I'm taking Paul on Saturday. It starts at 7pm which is Will's bedtime so it's a mom/Paul special outing!

- We've started to really focus on looking for cool decorations on our walks. Some houses REALLY go all out! So instead of scooting/walking to the depressingly dry creek in our neighborhood, we wind through the streets of our neighborhood, looking for the best decorations.

- One other tradition is meeting up with all the kids/families on the block for a block photo. There are tons of kids on our block so there are quite a few kids (and adults) in the picture! When my kids are older, I envision them trick or treating with kids from the block. 

- Last year I took Paul trick or treating but I think it's something we'll probably trade off. I was impressed with his stamina last year. We were out for an hour and only went home because I had to nurse Will so he could go to bed. We'll see how long he lasts this year. He was super excited and outgoing. He used to be a super shy child but seems to be outgrowing that? 

- I think Will is only going to go to a couple of houses but we'll see how into it he is. We were in the process of moving when Paul was around Will's age so we just went to a few houses to say goodbye/let them know we were moving. Will might want to keep up with big brother but he certainly won't stay out as long as Paul. Plus someone needs to be home to hand out candy. 

***

Who knew I had so much to say about a holiday that I used to, um, hate. Ha! 

Your turn! Tell me about your Halloween memories and traditions, past and present!

12 comments:

  1. This was so fun to read, Lisa! You have been converted! I think holidays are so fun with little ones that age. They are just so full of excitement and joy. We love Halloween around here. My husband goes all out decorating our yard. He competes with the neighbour down the street and one year he used caution tape to write "CHAD I WIN" on the back of his truck in front of our house. It's just lots of fun. I give out full-size chocolate bars and make up special bags for the six kids on our street who I know well. My kids are too old for Trick or Treating now, obviously, but they used to get so spoiled as our street at that time was filled with old people and not many kids. Some of our neighbours would just bring us their excess candy when they didn't get many Trick or Treaters!
    Up here, and I'm sure you can relate, all costumes had to fit over many layers, sometimes winter coats! Big puffy kids running around. What a fun time in my life.

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  2. I am not "into" Halloween. Even as a kid, everyone else was way more excited about it all! I would 100% have stayed home as a kid and read a book if I could still have managed to get all the candy. We had to drive between houses because it was such a rural area and I always found it rather creepy and lonely. I was NOT sad when I was too old to trick-or-treat.
    We always carved pumpkins - in the rudimentary way you describe - and my Mom loved Halloween, even though because we lived in the middle of nowhere, we didn't really get many kids visiting our house.

    Now we live in an ideal neighbourhood for trick-or-treating and my kids LOVE Halloween. I don't decorate much at all, but I think I like it more now because the kids are so into it! It's just a very different experience then I had since there are probably 100 kids that visit our neighbourhood. We do carve a pumpkin each year; last year we stacked three white pumpkins and made a snowman. It really was very cool!

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  3. Yes- I definitely got way more into Halloween when I had kids! Of course I loved the holiday as a kid, but never celebrated it as an adult- until, as I said, I had kids of my own. Now I put up indoor and outdoor decorations- but I'm not one of those awesome people who puts up cool things. It's more like orange and purple lights in the bushes and some ghosts hanging in the palm trees.
    When I was little, the biggest difference is that the kids always went trick or treating together but without adults (after a certain age of course.) It was so much fun! Every house gave out one piece of candy-there were none of these gift bags or handfuls of candy people give out now. But we would be out for hours, and return home with our pillowcases full of candy. And yes- the biggest disappointment would be if it was so cold that we had to wear a coat over our costumes 9since I grew up near Chicago, that happened a lot.)The good old days(

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  4. I'm not that big on Halloween either, but it would be more fun with kids. I like the decorations in the house (and maybe sometme before the 31st I'll at least put up SOMETHING.) I get pumpkins (Have to do that, too) and we used to carve them but not recently. Usually Rick comes for Halloween dinner (chili) and hands out the candy. I'm always glad when it's over.

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  5. We love Halloween. We carve pumpkins and decorate the house and one of the big advantages of moving from an apartment to a house, as far as I'm concerned, is that we actually get trick or treaters! I love to roast the pumpkin seeds, look for cool non-candy things to put in the teal pumpkin (for kids with food allergies), and just generally get into the spooky nature of the holiday. It's so much fun!

    I'm glad you're getting into the spirit of it for the sake of the kids. It should be fun for them!

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  6. i didn't grow up with Halloween and never celebrated it before having kids. Since we moved to Manila, we don't do much at home but the building usually organized events for the kids. Our new condo in Jakarta also has one, so that's quite a relief for me as I don't need to organize treat and trick for them, just to buy a custom for them to join the party.
    I feel like I am now "celebrating" much more than when I was single and without kids, and kind of like to have those milestones to mark the calendar and something to look forward as a family.

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  7. Halloween has always been one of my least favorite holidays. I don't really enjoy dressing up and find the process of figuring out a cool Halloween costume to be SO exhausting, lol. I feel like I have found some cool costumes in the past, like the year I was fantasy football or the year I was Luke from Gilmore Girls. But mostly, I'm rather meh on the holiday.

    It's fun how excited kids get, though, and I like going to my mom's house to pass out candy with her. I have some cat ears that I wear to pass out candy but I asked my mom if she was going to dress up and she was like "Absolutely not," haha. So you can see where my "meh-ness" for the holiday comes from! We just were not a family that did much to celebrate Halloween. We would get dressed up and go trick-or-treating but that was about it!

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  8. I really love Halloween season!! My birthday is coming up next week, so mid-October, and I have just such fond memories of fall/ Halloween/ my birthday all smushed together from when I was a kid. My mom would decorate quite a bit (which is probably why I do now, too) and every year I had a sleepover birthday party with friends which was always Halloween themed/ orange cupcakes. Also, my sister and my best friend and I would always turn our basement into this epic, crazy big haunted house. Like, we went all out. Looking back, I'm amazed how creative we were! We had a big basement with two big unfinished areas/ multiple rooms, and we would create graveyards, set up special effect lighting, make all sorts of creepy props, buy spooky music tapes to play, etc. One of us acted as the "guide", and the other two would take turns playing a different role at the various stops along the route as the guide led my friends through one by one. I have the BEST memories of this- it was so cool! Everyone looked forward to it every year. And I think my mom was always relieved when it was over and she could have her basement back!

    Now, with my boys, we mostly have the tradition of decorating quite a bit, orange lights, we always make halloween cupcakes and on Halloween night I always make chili to have when they get back from trick or treating. We used to always go to a pumpkin patch when they were younger, and more recently we have done a corn maze each year.

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  9. I love that you're able to embrace Halloween as a parent and that you have fun with costumes and traditions with your kids.

    Halloween was not a "thing" growing up in Germany, so I don't have any memories around it... and I haven't fully embraced it since I moved here. I am not a costume person, so it never appealed to me as an adult holiday, but I do enjoy (some of) the decorations in our neighborhood and I always go on a "Halloween run" where I take pictures of all the cool decorations.

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  10. Put me solidly in the "not a fan of Halloween" camp. I'm impressed, though, at how you've been able to adjust since having at least one kid who is *clearly* all in on this holiday! I love Paul's enthusiasm, and I love how you are embracing and supporting it!

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  11. I think that I am very similar to you in that without having kids, Halloween is not really a holiday that is on the top of my list. However, it does seem like the kids have a lot of fun! It seems like my neighborhood/area is not really that into it either as nobody really decorates! However, I just came back from Portland and everyone had decorations up and it was so fun! I almost want to start doing something...almost.

    Like you, I came from a small town, carved triangles and circle faces into pumpkins and had homemade costumes. I also remember getting homemade cookies and baked goods, but that was a long time ago! I vaguely remember when they first started being scared about people poisoning the cookies or something like that. Also, I am not really a candy person, so my Dad would buy my candy from me for a few cents each. I loved that and would sell it all to him and then put my money in savings! So I liked that part of it for sure!

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  12. I'm not a huge Halloween fan. My costumes were so lack luster and I was on my own a lot as a kid so I have no problem buying them for my kids if they are interested. I do find them as cheap as I can but ain't no body in this house going to make a costume. Though Adeline has already said she wants to build a robot costume for next year. We have a beanie baby ghost and a beanie baby witch I inherited from my grandma. And two dollar store pumpkins that I leave out through thanksgiving. Which reminds me I need to pull out my thankful sign and put away the ghost and witch.

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