retirement

Halloweens Past

I never truly appreciated the magic of Halloween until I hit my mid-20's. And only then because I began to work closely with children. Listening to them talk about their costumes and their plans, having them ask me daily (starting in September) how many days away Halloween was, I remembered what it was like to be a child during Halloween. It was when I started working with kids that I finally appreciated how much thought, effort, creativity, and.... magic! my mom put into each and every Halloween (for as long as we would tolerate it!).

Each year, we'd either request our costumes, or my mom would suggest an idea of something she could make. And each year- she CREATED our costumes! She HAND-MADE them! I kid you not. She came home with a pattern, and some materials, and got busy at the sewing machine. And she would work on them for days and days. Looking back now, I am amazed at how much time she spent working on our costumes. It's not like she had very much free time. She worked full time and somehow managed to cook dinner EVERY night of the week AND hand-make our Halloween costumes!

It seemed like, year after year, I'd come home from school with a prize for 'Best Costume'. Did I just grow to expect it? Our family would have never considered buying one of those plastic, ready-to-go costumes from K-Mart. Believe me, they seemed appealing for a very short time when I only seemed to notice all of my friends who were sporting the pure plastic ensembles! But, come Halloween, one after the next, my mom was ready and more than willing to create completely original costumes for us. Amazing. Some of the most memorable.... a strawberry (I wore pantyhose on my face!), a money bag (we're talking the REAL thing, too! no fake money bags for us!), Rainbow Brite! How lucky was I?! And have I honestly not realized it until now?!
My parents created a level of excitement, of buzz around Halloween. I hope to pass that on to my own kids one day.

Happy Halloween, a little bit late!