Halloween 2018

A little late, but I thought it was something worth documenting for the old family archives. The kids are still young enough to enjoy every holiday to its fullest, and Halloween is no exception. Halloween is still great for me as well because of the candy tax that is owed to me as a parent. Which is to say, I loot the kids' bags after trick-or-treating for all of the good stuff, starting with anything that contains both peanut butter and chocolate, and working my way down the hierarchy from there.

I'm always interested to see what my kids' costume choice will be, because usually it's something completely out of left field. The exception this year was my daughter, who went as a cowgirl, which was no surprise at all considering her new found (and expensive) love of horses and horseback riding.

This was also one of the few costumes that we put together ourselves. I remember growing up how my mother would make Halloween costumes for my three siblings and I. And I do mean make, as in finding patterns, cutting out said patterns in cloth, and literally sewing together costumes of a far higher calibre than most anything you'd find in a store. I still have my Star Trek: The Next Generation costume, and I'm still mourning the loss of the my mom's homemade Batman costume (classic blue and grey) which seems to have disappeared in the intervening years.

I've turned into a real city slicker I guess, and tend to rely on store-bought costumes. My son this year was adamant that he wanted to be a police officer, which put me in a much more familiar zone of not having any idea why. It does offer a clue into his developing psyche, I suppose, though what I might discern from it, I have have absolutely no idea. Or maybe there's nothing more to it. I believe it was the great Sigmund Freud who one said that sometimes a child-sized, toy tactical vest is just a child-sized, toy tactical vest.

It's not just the children getting in on the fun, though. Our humble abode, it seems, must also be transformed to help channel the spirits of darkness in our neighbourhood and foster that sense of the macabre that is so lacking from the lives of our children. Decorating the house for Halloween has become part of the tradition, and for the past couple of years, we've been slowly adding to our array of symbols of death, decay, and the Forces of Darkness. We're not anywhere near the realm of being "that house" in the neighbourhood, but there's enough going on to convey our enjoyment of the holiday.

We have the beginnings of a graveyard, and some of our dearly departed rising from the grave to join in our revels on this the most unholy day of our calendar (besides the cut-off for filing taxes). The only thing that got cut out of the pictures below was a skeletal dog with glowing red eyes that kept a constant vigil on our dark effigy.

Here it is in the daytime:

And here it is cloaked in unending darkness:

The third part of our depraved Halloween tradition is, of course, the dreaded carving of the pumpkins. Now that the children are of a certain age, they are able to actually do some of this horrific carving themselves. Of course, seeing as my daughter was insistent that we break into "teams" of boys versus girls, my wife and I take a bit more of the lead to ensure our side takes home the victory.

Again, I'm not sure if this is indicative of any other deeper meaning in our subconsciousnesses, but behold the brainchild of my wife and daughter:

And here is the creation from my son and I:

I'm sure these jack o'lanterns aren't unconscious manifestations of our underlying psychological states expressed through the medium of holiday decorations. Probably.