LONG thoughts on Halloween

Halloween is right on the horizon. Every store has its orange and black spooky decorations on display, along with an array of overpriced costumes. I was in a popular chain store elbowing my way to the racks, stepping on the hangers of the outfits tossed by the wayside in search of the perfect costume for my boys. As I was reaching for an adorable furry Elmo costume, a thought occurred to me. Well, a chain of thoughts really. I had never stopped to think how different Halloween is for my boys than it was for me. I was instantly taken back to a small classroom in the hills of southern Kenya. My momentary lapse allowed another woman to quickly snatch the costume out from under my fingers, but that is another story for another time.

I was raised in Kenya, East Africa. My parents moved to Africa in 1976 with a mission organization. My brother and I were both born and raised overseas. We lived in the Loita hills in southern Kenya. Halloween was approaching, and I was anticipating the holiday as much as any five-year-old kid would. From what I understood, we were going to take one whole school day to create our own costumes! I could hardly wait for the exciting day to arrive!

Allow me to take a moment to explain a little bit about where we lived and our circumstances. Our house was a converted shop that was built out of corrugated tin. It was the main building in a small compound of buildings. Our back door led out to the back yard where there was a building that served as storage and the guest room. In the back of our yard was a third building which was our schoolhouse and dad’s office. In the opposite corner was an outhouse. Now that you have a bit of a mental picture, the story will move forward.

Halloween finally arrived and we headed back to the schoolhouse. My mom brought two huge paper sacks with us. I recognized them as the bags our toilet paper came in. There was also construction paper, scissors, glue, tape, and everything you need to create a costume with a little imagination.

“What do you want to be?” Mom asked. All the anticipation culminated to this single moment. My brother wanted to be a robot and I decided on an elephant. We cut, folded, taped, glued, and cut some more. At the end of the day, we had our costumes ready for our big trick-or-treating adventure. After dinner, we got our costumes on. The huge paper sack fit over my body and was covered in construction paper features. My favorite feature was an accordion style trunk that popped out of a hole in the front. My brother’s had buttons, accordion arms, and some pipe cleaner antennae.

My mom gave us our treat bags and sent us out the back door to our first “house”. We started at Dad’s office. “Trick or treat!” We shouted in unison. After he gave us each a handful of candy, he directed us to our next “house” on our route: the guesthouse. We knocked and were duly rewarded by my mom answering the door with handfuls of candy. The next stop was the schoolroom. Off we went with half-full treat bags and hearts full of anticipation. My dad met us again. This time he wanted us to do a trick first, so Bryan and I sang a song to get our next treat. The last stop was our own back door where my mom brought us in for a dessert of homemade Halloween sugar cookies.

As I think back with fondness on these early memories, I can’t help but look at my own two kids. Halloween has fallen victim to the monstrous commercialization spreading throughout the western world. I live in a completely different place and culture now, but there are a few things that are the same. As children, we could have missed the holiday altogether. After all, there were no costume stores nearby, nor were there any neighbors with whom to trick-or-treat. Honestly, we probably would have never known the difference. I am thankful to my parents for choosing to help us exercise our creativity. I hope I can instill in my boys the value of creativity. When they have the choice between doing what is easy and popular or being creative and unique, I hope that they will choose to be unique sometimes. I hope the memories they carry with them into adulthood will be fond, and most of all, creative.