Life In Austin: All Hallow's Eve

Remember Halloween? Remember being a kid and the unbridled thrill you could feel creeping into your bones as you applied copious amounts of make up and donned yarn wigs and thing colorful material. Remember putting up with the fact that you couldn't breath through the mask because you knew the mask made you look cool? Remember the sugar starved insanity that preceded dumping a bag of candy onto the floor, sifting it through the haul like a gold-digger looking for flakes, weeding out the good candy from the crap trinkets?

Yeah me too.

I also remember carving pumpkins and watching Peanuts on CBS and football games and raking leaves and the light going out early and the weather being on the cusp of winter, nipping at your heels as your tennis shoes, which didn't match your costume, mounted assault after spirit of the dusk assault on lighted porches and driveways. It's a magical time of year for me, one of which I never forget and always look forward to, but one that I never plan for until about 3 days before the event. There's no commercialism in it for me, there's only the deepening of the sky and the chill on the air and the smell of apples and cinnamon and burning pumpkin guts. What this translates to is an almost obsessive desire to see Lil Miss Austin dressed up in something cute. Yeah, I'd like her to have the most creative costume, or the most endearing, but when she sees the costume at the store and goes into toddler bliss, who am I to argue?

Yeah I think it's a bit different now then when I was a kid. I had a mom that was pretty skilled in the area of, how shall I say, Seemsteric Creation. I had a clown outfit as a standby for a good couple years just in case my Tron costume didn't pan out. And while I constantly tell people about my infamous Mystic costume from the Dark Crystal as they politely go inside their own heads and scream at me that they've heard it before, I haven't considered creating a costume for LMA. There was talk of the three of us dressing up as Lego pieces, then the Ragedy's (Anne, Andy and, hmm, is there a third?) but in the end, $20 at Target did in a pinch. Next year. Right? Next year she'll be a beautiful butterfly with home made wings and teased up hair and sparkly make up. Next year she'll be Kyra the Gelfing and I'll reprise the Mystic role. Next year Mrs. Austin and I will dig out our M&M outfits and make a Mini M&M outfit for her. Next year. Promise.

ooOOooo, the ghost is so scary!!

Don't get near me clown, I'm mischievous as all get out and I WILL take your bubbles.

A bumblebee on the edge! Look at that barely contained excitement. Anymore sugar and she'll explode.

Mrs. Austin let's me play with knives. Lil Miss Austin was there to supervise.

"That's right honey, get the whole arm in there. It's not Halloween until you're covered in orange slime."

Not so ghoulish after all, well done kiddo.

I keep saying, Halloween, when in fact only 1/3 of our household celebrates Halloween. That minority is I. The women of the house celebrate Samhain, the Last Harvest, the darkening of the days before the god is reborn. It's yet another holiday that all good Christians celebrate that has its roots firmly founded in more ancient beliefs. It's ironic; Samhain is all about reflection and recognizing that the end of the light is coming, but with a strong belief that the light will come again. It's in no way evil or satanic or even spooky. The fact that Christianity has both adopted this as All Hallows Eve and bastardized it's meaning is quite extraordinary. It's like ignoring a family member for most of their life, then towards the end creating an imaginary friend in their likeness that you tell people you hate. It makes no sense. Ah well, with Resurrections being portrayed as Chocolate Eggs, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

At any rate, regardless of what you call it, it still seems ok to go out and basically beg for candy from strangers, which I find mind blowing. As a kid you don't catch the subtle hypocrisy of "Don't take candy from strangers, except for this one day and you have to ask them for it while dressed up all funny." I haven't worked out if Trick or Treating is cool on Samhain, but I will say this, I had to do a lot more Tricks when I was a kid. Between having to tell jokes or sing songs, it's a wonder I got any flippin candy at the end of the night. I think next year I'm also going to put a sign up, or carve it into a pumpkin on the porch. "No costume, no candy. And some face paint doesn't a costume make." There's no effort there, grab a pillowcase and bum rush all the little kids in costume at a doorway, not even saying Trick or Treat. They just hold their bags out like if I don't give them candy they're gonna tell on me. Man, kids today. (Yeah screw you I'm old.)

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